If a common language has once established itself in a large area, it is rare for another common language to arise for a portion only of that area. Thus a Provençal common language would be an impossibility in the face of the powerful French which has spread over the greater part of France. Again, a common language can hardly arise for any large area whose single parts have already some common language which suffices for their needs. This may be seen in the failure of the Panslavists to create a common language in an area already occupied by Polish, Servian, etc. No example of this fact can be drawn from England.

The introduction of printing is a powerful aid to the extension of a common language. Thanks to the invention of printing, a written record can quickly be communicated to a large linguistic area in the shape given to it by the author, and an impulse is likewise given to studying what is presented to readers in such an attractive and commodious guise. But it is necessary that the alphabet employed should be identical for all the people in the linguistic area in question; and, of course, the language expressed by that alphabet must be widely understood over that area.

It should further be noticed that a common language must, generally speaking, be based upon an existing dialect, and that this dialect then modifies itself to suit the demands of the different dialectic areas which demand the common language. Thus, Luther expressly tells us that he based his translation of the Bible upon the dialect of the Saxon Chancellery: Modern French is based upon the dialect of the Ile de France: Chaucer chose the London dialect as the most appropriate for his purpose. Such cases as the modern attempts to form a common language in the instance of Volapük, etc., have been but partially successful; there was no strong existing basis upon which to found them.

It must be assumed as a necessity to the success of any common language, that there are a number of persons compelled by circumstances to make themselves acquainted with one or more foreign dialects. This may be brought about by the demands of commerce, or from the fact that the persons in question are compelled to live in the foreign linguistic area, and to employ its tongue. We can see the operation of these causes in such cases as the creation of such a lingua franca as Pigeon English, which arises not merely from the fact that the English and Chinese who use it as a vehicle of communication are ignorant of each other’s language, but further from the fact that the Chinese who employ it speak dialects so different as to be partially or wholly unintelligible to each other. Similar remarks hold good of the Spanish in South America,—which is learned by Italian immigrants speaking different dialects, and serves as a lingua franca to them. But even when such lingua franca, or common language, has been formed, it is liable in its turn to further development. It may be influenced, for example, by the more perfect acquisition of the standard language on the part of those who use the dialect based upon it as a common language; as is probably the case with the Pigeon English spoken by the Japanese: or, by the adoption into the common language of an increasing number of words from the vocabulary of those who are gradually allowing their own dialects to be superseded by the common language.

Supposing, however, that a special dialect has been selected as the model for a standard language, even in civilised countries, we must not assume that it is possible to adopt it as the actual and pure model. The model dialects cannot fail to be influenced by the dialect of the special speaker or writer, and in many cases this mixture may make itself very prominent. This is especially seen, perhaps, in the case of literature which, like journals and periodicals, is intended mainly to circulate in the special dialectic area. Thus, for instance, Americanisms, Scotticisms, and Hibernicisms, are more common in the newspaper press of America, Scotland, and Ireland than in the standard literature published in those countries. Again, the dialect, on which the model or normal language was based, will, from the very nature of language, change more rapidly than the normal language itself, which must from its nature be more conservative; so that here, again, a discrepancy cannot fail to set in between the dialect and the model language. The truth of this may be well seen in the changes which have passed over the London dialect in comparatively recent times. The habit of omitting the aspirate, or, as we say, dropping the h, seems to be quite a recent development in English,219 and to have spread probably at the end of the last century. Dickens’ Londoners frequently drop their aspirates: and he seems to be the first writer who makes his characters do this on a large scale. On the other hand, the ven and vy of his characters are hardly now heard in London.

And thus the artificial language, if it extend over a large area, becomes differentiated into dialects more or less strongly marked, in much the same way as the natural language within a particular district. Probably English is the language in which this fact can be noticed more easily and on a wider scale than in the case of any other language, from the fact that the areas of English-speaking races are so widely separated in many cases; and all isolation must tend to strengthen the power of the dialect as against the artificial language. So-called Americanisms, for instance, may be older forms of the English language retained by the American dialect and lost by the English. On the other hand, they may be new importations into the standard or model language from the colloquial language, or from some dialect. These Americanisms, again, spread to such English-speaking countries as Australia, Canada, and New Zealand more readily and quickly than they do to England. Consequently, the artificial language, in spite of its tendency to conservatism, is manifestly changing in the different English-speaking areas, although the change is not, of course, as great or as quick in its fulfilment as that which comes to pass in the development of dialects in the area of a definite territory.

It is, of course, possible to arrest to some extent the change in an artificial language by the influence of academies, who shall authoritatively decide upon the permissibility or otherwise of the use of a certain word or phrase; but under normal circumstances the involuntary development which we have spoken of is characteristic of a standard language as well as of language in general.

A single linguistic area may, under the proper conditions, develop a duality or even a plurality of standards, though instances of the entire co-ordination of two different standards are, in the history of language, very rare. The classical example for the duality of standard is offered by the linguistic conditions in Greece during the period between 250 and 50 B.C. Two types of normalised or standard language, neither of them corresponding exactly to any one folk-dialect, and each of them almost entirely uninfluenced by the other, asserted their pre-eminence over the folk-dialects in two distinct districts. The one, which we may call ‘Eastern Greek’ or the Attic κοινή, was based upon the Attic dialect; the other, which we may call ‘Western Greek,’ was based upon the Laconian. The former was the language of those political and commercial interests that centred about the Ægean; the latter, of those that centred about the Gulf of Corinth. The former represented the new cosmopolitan spirit of Hellenism, the latter the conservative and provincial spirit that had its political expression in the Achæan and Ætolian leagues.

Here, as elsewhere, the levelling of the peculiarities of provincial speech in the interest of a standard language represents and corresponds to a levelling of provincial barriers in the interest of a unitary civilisation, and under the impulse of great common movements of commercial intercourse, political organisation, or religious thought, and the appearance of two areas of levelling in language betrays the existence of two areas of common commercial, political, literary, or religious interest. The division of German Protestantism into the Lutheran and Swiss wings, coupled with political distinctions, availed to maintain for a long time, even in the printed form, a Swiss standard of German, as distinguished from the so-called Modern High German.

To be distinguished from the cases of duality or plurality of standard are those of complexity of standard. A portion of a linguistic area, which recognises in general outlines, or in the most essential characteristics, the common standard of the whole, may develop inside these limits a secondary standard of its own, which, in its turn, asserts itself as a unifying influence above the disparities of the popular dialects. Such is the status of the American-English, if indeed it be admitted that there be any American standard at all. The wide disagreement upon this latter much-mooted question arises largely from a failure to recognise what the true nature of a standard in language is. In the light of the preceding discussion, and by the help of the abundant available material, it cannot be difficult to reach some consistent solution of this question.

The attitude of the extremists on the one side is well represented by the dictum of Richard Grant White:220 ‘In language whatever is peculiarly American is bad.’ In other words, the absolute test of correctness is the English standard, which is notably the usage of the educated classes in the great centre of English life. It must, however, be remarked, at the beginning of any discussion of this sort, that the question concerns not what ought to be or might best be, but what is the fact. If it be actually the fact that any considerable body of men, whose usage, be it through respect for their culture, their intelligence, or their position, or for any other reason, commands the deference of the great mass of American speakers and writers, follows so loyally the English standard as to regard as bad in language all that is peculiarly American, then it is the fact that there is no such thing as an American standard in language. There is, then, only one standard English speech, and that the standard of London.

There exists, however, in America no educated or cultured class in the English sense. The educated stand nearer the people than in England. The children of the better classes are, furthermore, not so easily isolated from the influence of the dialect of their locality as in England. Certainly there exists in general no class with which the popular mind associates the idea of authority in matters of speech, nor whose speech is respected or admired as correct. The class of men most likely to be imitated and most likely to exercise an unconscious influence upon the usages of society is the intelligent mercantile class, but this is not a permanent or well-defined body. Certainly it is not a body likely to follow puristically a foreign standard of speech.

It is in part this absence of a homogeneous usage among the more intelligent and influential classes, such as undoubtedly exists in England, that occasions the apparently immoderate use of dictionaries in America as standards of orthoëpy. So various is the usage in the pronunciation even of many common words, like quinine, courteous, envelope, tribune, route, suite, wound, that the ear in its confusion of impressions fails to decide definitely, and recourse must be had to the dictionaries. It is most frequently in cases of doubt like these that appeal is made to the greater certainty of the English standard. It plays the part of a convenient arbiter. This differs entirely in principle from an attempt, for example, to introduce the totally non-American pronunciation of trait with silent t final, or of bureau with accent on the second syllable.

No single district or city in America ever has been or can be generally recognised as furnishing a standard of speech. Washington is in no such sense the capital of the United States as Paris is of France; New York is not a metropolis in the sense that London is. Eastern Massachusetts, with its chief city Boston, enjoys a certain preëminence in the superior education and intelligence of its people; but its local idiom, like the general spirit of its population, is too strongly provincial to attract any imitation. In fact, nowhere in the United States have the schools and all their adjuncts made more vigorous efforts to root out the popular dialect, and nowhere does the English standard receive so full recognition. The situation furnishes a tolerably exact parallel to the rigidity of Hanoverian German, an imported standard on Low German soil, and constitutes a further illustration of the well-known orthodoxy of recent converts. The schools of Boston teach the ultra-English pronunciation of been as bīn, while the native dialect has běn, and the American κοινή has extended to general use the secondary form bĭn.221

The stage is not yet in a position to exercise any marked influence upon the language, to say nothing of furnishing a standard. The influence of the pulpit is probably greater.

But though neither the stage, an educated class, nor any given locality has availed to vindicate for itself the right of establishing a standard, it is an incontrovertible fact that, within certain limits and to a certain extent, an American standard of English does exist. There is a great number of words, of word usages, of pronunciations, of phrases, and of syntactical constructions, which have, though not recognised in English usage, a universal and well-accepted currency among the best writers and speakers of America, and rise entirely above all suspicion of provincialism. To avoid or rebuke them, or to attempt the substitution of pure English words or expressions would be only an ostentatious purism unsupported by the facts of society and the necessities of language, and would expose the would-be corrector even to ridicule and to the reproach of alienism. As has already been remarked, we are not concerned in a case like this with the ideally desirable, but solely with the existing fact. On no other basis can the existence of a standard be determined. If, for example, any one should, in deference to English usage, assume to correct an established and universally accepted American expression like railroad car, which a well-known poet222 has thought worthy a place in serious verse, into its foreign equivalent railway carriage, it would be generally regarded as an odious affectation. The relatively few Americans who, without any sufficient reason, but in a spirit of undisguised and helpless imitation, affect to adopt English manners, usages, and dress, are as a class notably unpopular with the mass of Americans, and, as unpopular, are uninfluential. What is true of their other usages, would be in like degree of their language.

To illustrate from the vocabulary alone, there is a large and constantly increasing body of non-English words, which are used in all sections of the country, which are shunned by no class of writers or speakers, but which are universally used and esteemed as sound and normal expressions. Such are lengthy, to donate, to loan, to gerrymander, dutiable, gubernatorial, senatorial, bogus, shoddy, mailable; these are slowly penetrating into the English of England, and the path of such words is rendered plainer by their previous adoption in the British Colonies, whose linguistic history is so akin to that of America. Many words of this kind are of French, Spanish, Dutch, or Indian origin, but have been so thoroughly assimilated into the language by usage as to rank entirely with the purest English element; thus levee, crevasse, prairie, canyon, ranch, stampede, to stampede, corral, boss, stoop, squaw, wigwam, hickory, racoon, moccasin, hammock, canoe, toboggan, hominy, opossum, terrapin.

In determining the existence of a standard and what may belong to that standard, we are in no wise concerned with the origin of words or expressions. It is not a question of origin, but a question of usage and of ‘good form.’ The observation that to guess, in its sense of ‘opinari,’ is found in Chaucer and Gower, contributes nothing to either side of the discussion whether there is or is not an American standard. The only question is whether guess, ‘opinari,’ is in universal and accepted American use. The fact is, that, though in widely extended use, it still remains dialectic, and is not a feature of the standard. The word fall for autumn may in isolated instances be found in English writers, and is undoubtedly with some meaning or other a good old English word, but the fact is, that, as a substitute for autumn, it is not ‘good form’ in England, and is in America. Spry, ‘active, nimble,’ is an ‘Americanism,’ because, though found in the English dialects, it is a standard word only in America. The American use of sick, in retaining the old English value now expressed by the modern English ill, vindicates rather than controverts the existence of a separate standard. Differences in the uses of words common to the two types are illustrated by the following: lumber, in English, ‘cumbersome material;’ in American, equivalent also to English timber: tiresome, in English, ‘dull, annoying;’ in American, ‘fatiguing,’ as ‘a tiresome day:’ to fix, in English (and sometimes also in American), ‘to fasten;’ in American, ‘to repair,’ ‘to arrange:’ corn, in English, ‘grain;’ in American, ‘maize:’ transpire, in English, ‘to exhale,’ ‘to become public;’ in American, ‘to occur:’ bright, in English, (of persons) ‘cheerful;’ in American, ‘quick of intellect.’ Cases in which the two standards use different words for the same idea or object are, Amer. piazza, Eng. verandah; Amer. bureau, Eng. dressing-table; Amer. elevator, Eng. lift; Amer. sleigh, Eng. sledge; Amer. trunk, Eng. box; Amer. store, Eng. shop; Amer. public schools, Eng. national schools; Amer. academies, Eng. public schools; Amer. to graduate, Eng. to take a degree; Amer. student, Eng. undergraduate; Amer. druggist, Eng. chemist. Amer. mush, Eng. porridge; Amer. biscuit, Eng. roll; Amer. cracker, Eng. biscuit; Amer. candy, or confectionery, Eng. sweets; Amer. pitcher, Eng. jug; Amer. tidy, Eng. antimacassar; Amer. postal, or postal-card, Eng. post-card; Amer. city, Eng. town; Amer. fall, Eng. autumn; Amer. sick, Eng. ill; Amer. rare (of meat), Eng. underdone; Amer. smart, Eng. clever. Many articles of clothing, especially men’s clothing, have different names. Thus, Amer. vest, Eng. waistcoat; Amer. sack-coat, Eng. jacket; Amer. pants, Eng. trousers; Amer. drawers, Eng. pants; Amer. underwear, Eng. underclothing; Amer. waist, Eng. body, bodice; etc., etc.

Especially instructive it is to note how special activities, particularly those of more modern development, have found themselves in England and America separate vocabularies. Let us take for illustration the language of railways and railway travel: compare Amer. locomotive, Eng. engine (also American); Amer. engineer, Eng. driver; Amer. fireman, Eng. stoker (limited in America to steamships); Amer. conductor, Eng. guard; Amer. baggage-car, Eng. van; Amer. railroad, Eng. railway; Amer. car, Eng. carriage; Amer. cars (as ‘to get off the cars’), Eng. train (also American); Amer. track, Eng. line; Amer. to switch, Eng. to shunt; Amer. switch, Eng. point; Amer. to buy one’s ticket (not unknown in England), Eng. to book; Amer. freight-train, Eng. goods-train; Amer. depot (pronounced de̅e̅´po), Eng. station (gaining ground in America); Amer. baggage, Eng. luggage; Amer. trunk, Eng. box; Amer. to check, Eng. to register; Amer. horse-car, Eng. tram or tram-car; Amer. horse-car track, Eng. tramway. The Americans adhere to a nautical figure, and speak of ‘getting aboard the cars.’

American political life has developed also a vocabulary of its own. Some of these words have gained a limited currency in England, but are mostly felt still to be importations. Such political Americanisms are caucus, stump, to stump, filibuster, federalist, senatorial, gubernatorial, copperheads, knownothings, carpetbaggers, mass-meeting, buncombe, to gerrymander, to lobby, mileage (as a money-allowance for travelling), wire-puller, etc.

Many words have received derived or special meanings which have become established in general and unquestioned usage: thus, locality, ‘a place;’ notions, ‘small wares;’ clearing, ‘a cleared place in the forest;’ squatter, ‘one who settles on another’s land;’ whereas in Australia the latter word has developed into the special meaning of one who rents a large area of government land on which to depasture sheep.

Vastly more important for our purpose than these mere differences of vocabulary are those differences in phrases and turns of expression, which, as subtler and less noticeable to the ordinary hearer and reader, are less open to superficial imitation. Compare American quarter of five with English quarter to five (also American, but less common than the former); Amer. lives on West Street, Eng. lives in West Street; Amer. sick abed, Eng. ill in bed; Amer. that’s entirely too, Eng. that’s much too; Amer. back and forth, Eng. to and fro; Amer. there’s nothing to him, Eng. there’s nothing in him; Amer. named after, Eng. named for (also American); Amer. it don’t amount to anything, Eng. come to; Amer. fill teeth, Eng. stop teeth; Amer. walking; lying around, Eng. walking about; Amer. are you through? Eng. have you finished? Amer. that’s too bad, Eng. what a pity (also American); Amer. as soon as (also Eng.), Eng. directly (‘directly he arrives’), Amer. right away, Eng. directly, straight away; Amer. once in a while, Eng. now and then; Amer. quite a while, Eng. some time; Amer. go to town, or go into the city, Eng. go up; Amer. takes much pleasure in accepting, Eng. has much pleasure; Amer. have a good time, Eng. to enjoy one’s self (also American).

It is not totally without significance that American usage has established and confirmed a standard of orthography that is in some few points divergent from the English: thus honor, honour; wagon, waggon; check, cheque; traveler, traveller; center, centre; by-law, bye-law; jewelry, jewellery, etc.

Much that in English usage is approved and standard sounds to American ears strange and outlandish. The English use of nasty, for example, is to the American, with whom it implies the quintessence of dirtiness, distinctly abhorrent and all but disgusting: even more may be said of the semi-colloquialisms knocked up, ‘tired,’ and screwed, ‘intoxicated;’ while, e.g., haberdasher and purveyor are as good as foreign words.

The possession of a common literature holds the two languages strongly together, and assures a narrow limit to the possibilities of divergence. It is only within this limit that the American standard exists. Freedom of trade and intercourse, that has come with the building of railways and especially since the close of the civil war, is rapidly replacing the local idioms with a normal type of speech, and it is upon the common usage in the chief centres and along the chief avenues of commercial activity and national life that this normal type is based. It corresponds to no one of the local dialects, but stands above them all; it corresponds in the main with the English standard, but maintains a limited independence within the scope of certain modern and special activities of American life.

INDEX
The numbers refer to the pages.