A History of English Language

A history of the english language 272
improvement of it; a turning English into French, rather than a refining of English by
French. We meet daily with those fops who value themselves on their travelling, and
pretend they cannot express their meaning in English, because they would put off on us
some French phrase of the last edition; without considering that, for aught they know, we
have a better of our own. But these are not the men who are to refme us; their talent is to
prescribe fashions, not words.” 49 The feeling was very common. In 1711 Addison wrote
in the Spectator (No. 165): “I have often wished, that as in our constitution there are
several persons whose business is to watch over our laws, our liberties, and commerce,
certain men might be set apart as superintendents of our language, to hinder any words of
a foreign coin, from passing among us; and in particular to prohibit any French phrases
from becoming current in this kingdom, when those of our own stamp are altogether as
valuable.” Even quite late in the century Campbell could say, “Nay, our language is in
greater danger of being overwhelmed by an inundation of foreign words, than of any
other species of destruction.”
It is not difficult to see how French was in a strong position to influence English at
this time. The language was then at the height of its prestige. It was used at almost every
court in Europe. The knowledge of the language among the upper classes in England was
quite general, equaled only by the ignorance of English on the part of the French.
Sheridan, speaking of the widespread use of Latin in the Middle Ages, says that it was
written by all the learned of Europe “with as much fluency and facility as the polite now
speak or write French.” Travel in France was considered a necessary part of one’s
education, and the cultural relations between the two countries were very close. And yet
the danger does not seem to have been acute. The number of French words admitted to
the language in the period from 1650 to 1800 was not unusually large. 50 The Oxford
English Dictionary records a fair number that did not win permanent acceptance, but
among those that have been retained are such useful words as ballet, boulevard, brunette,
canteen, cartoon, champagne, chenille, cohesion, coiffure, connoisseur, coquette, coterie,
dentist, negligee, patrol, pique, publicity, routine, soubrette, syndicate. Most of these are
words that we could ill afford to lose. Time has again done the sifting and clearly done it
well.
207. The Expansion of the British Empire.
When we take our eyes from the internal problems which the language was facing and
the English were attempting to solve, we observe that in this period the foundations were
49
Dramatic Poetry of the Last Age.
50
See table in footnote, § 133.