every similar publication and legitimately availed myself of the information afforded, still no one or two individual works have, to any undue degree, tended to abbreviate the process of my labors. To the Dictionaries of Richardson and Worcester, I am indebted for a vast amount of valuable information. From works not copyright I have freely drawn; such as from those of Priestley, Lowth, Ash, Harrison, Hazlitt, Murray, Knowles, Rothwell, Angus (W.), Allen (W), Grant, and Lennie. My best thanks are due to Archbishop Trench, Latham, Craik, Crombie, Adams, Rogers, Morell, Marsh, Key, Brown, D'Orsey, Fowler, Reid, Connon, Wilson, Hunter, Lowres, Martin; to Dr. Angus, (Author of the valuable Handbook of the English Tongue,') and to many other distinguished writers whose names will be found in the Notes. 19, Cecil-street, Strand, LONDON: January, 1864. ROSCOE MONGAN. The Author's Practical English Spelling-book,' (the third Edi tion of which has just issued from the Press,) will be found a valuable auxiliary to the 'Practical English Grammar.' THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, THE Anglo-Saxon, the Latin, and the Greek, are the principal sources of the English language. History informs us that the ancient Celtic was the first language spoken in the British isles. Dialects of this tongue still exist in Wales, in the Highlands of Scotland, in the Isle of Man, and in the western parts of Ireland. At the beginning of the Christian era, the Romans succeeded in conquering a portion of Britain, but the victors and the vanquished were never completely united, and Celtic or Gaelic still remained the language of the country. During the fifth and sixth centuries, Saxon invaders poured in torrents from the shores of Germany, and having enslaved or extirpated most of the Celtic inhabitants, drove the remainder of them into Cumberland, or into the fastnesses of Wales.2 The Angles were the leading tribe of these conquerors; these Angles and the other Saxons soon merged into one people, and hence arose the term Anglo-Saxon-a title which afterwards distinguished the Saxon invaders of Britain from their kinsmen of the continent. Britain was first called Anglia or England, by Egbert, with the sanction of a Witenagemot held at Winchester, A.D. 800. The Anglo-Saxon language is the parent of our present English. For specimens of words derived from the Celtic and other languages, see pp. 119, 120. * The English, like the Germans in general, had a term by which they used to designate those who were of a different language from themselves. This was wealh, signifying foreigner; the plural of wealh was wealhas (foreigners ;) hence the present word Wales, wherein the name of the people stands for that of the country.-LATHAM'S English Grammar. The Danish invasion and occupation of the country produced very slight changes in the language, since the Danish itself was closely allied to the Saxon tongue, and also in consequence of the want of union between the people and their conquerors; the chief advantage conferred on the language by the Danes, was that they cleared away many of the inflections of the AngloSaxon, and thereby simplified its forms. Before the Norman Conquest, Norman-French had been the language of the Court during the reign of Edward the Confessor. After the battle of Hastings its ascendancy was complete amongst the Norman con querors, the upper classes, and the ecclesiastical rulers: but it never superseded the original Anglo-Saxon amongst the great mass of the people.' The Normans anxiously endeavoured to establish the supremacy of their language. "Evidence of the pains taken to introduce and diffuse it (observes Dr. Angus, quoting from Hallam and Hippesley,) may be found in the following fact : a. In the thirteenth century, boys in grammar schools were first taught French, and then had to construe their Latin into that tongue. b. Members of the universities were ordered to converse in Latin or in French. c. The proceedings of parliament, and the minutes of the corporation of London were recorded in French, and d. Of the authors who wrote in the three centuries after the conquest, nearly all used the French tongue. These efforts, however, never greatly modified the language of the people. At one time the court, at another time the barons, found it their interest to favour the Saxons. The occurrences that severed the Norman We received from the Normans the first germs of romantic poetry; and our language was ultimately indebted to them for a wealth and compass of expression which it probably would not otherwise have possessed.-THOMAS CAMPBELL's Essay on English Poetry. |