A History of English Language

A history of the english language 332
latter settled in certain central cities such as Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and St. Louis or
became farmers in the Middle West. The third period, the period since the Civil War, is
marked by an important change in the source from which our immigrants have been
derived. In the two preceding periods, and indeed up to about 1890, the British Isles and
the countries of northern Europe furnished from 75 to 90 percent of all who came to this
country. Even in the last quarter of the nineteenth century more than a million
Scandinavians, about one-fifth of the total population of Norway and Sweden, settled
here, mainly in the upper Mississippi valley. But since about 1890 great numbers from
Southern Europe and the Slavic countries have poured in. Just before World War I,
Italians alone were admitted to the number of more than 300,000 a year, and of our
annual immigration of more than a million, representatives of the east and south
European countries constituted close to 75 percent.
Outside the patterns of European immigration was the forced immigration of Africans
through the slave trade that began in the seventeenth century and continued until the midnineteenth.
There are presently some 25 million African Americans in the United States,
mostly settled in the South and in the larger cities of the North. Finally, one should note
the influx during the mid-twentieth century of Mexican, Puerto Rican, and other Hispanic
immigrants. Extreme economic imbalances among the countries of the Western
Hemisphere have caused a sharp increase in migration, both legal and illegal, to the
United States during the past two decades.
For the student of the English language the most interesting period of immigration to
America is the first. It was the early colonists who brought us our speech and established
its form. Those who came later were largely assimilated in a generation or two, and
though their influence may have been felt, it is difficult to define. 2 It is to these early
settlers that we must devote our chief attention if we would understand the history of the
English language in America.
239. The Thirteen Colonies.
The colonial settlement, the settlement of the thirteen colonies along the Atlantic
seaboard, covered a long narrow strip of land extending from Maine to Georgia. This area
is familiarly divided into three sections—New England, the Middle Atlantic states, and
the South Atlantic states. The earliest New England settlements were made around
Massachusetts Bay. Between 1620 and 1640 some 200 vessels came from England to
New England bringing upward of 15,000 immigrants. By the latter year
2
On this question see two papers by E.C.Hills, “The English of America and the French of France,”
American Speech, 4 (1928–1929), 43−47; “Linguistic Substrata of American English,” ibid., 431–
33.