A History of English Language

A history of the english language 346
Europe. It was a natural and entirely just recognition of the superior civilization of the
Old World and the greatness of English literature and learning. But with political
independence achieved, many of the colonists began to manifest a distaste for anything
that seemed to perpetuate the former dependence. An ardent, sometimes belligerent
patriotism sprang up, and among many people it became the order of the day to demand
an American civilization as distinctive from that of Europe as were the political and
social ideals that were being established in the new world.
No one expressed this attitude more vigorously than Noah Webster (1758–1843). Born
on the outskirts of Hartford, Connecticut, he received at Yale such an education as
universities in the country then offered and later undertook the practice of law. But
business in the legal profession was slow, and he was forced for a livelihood to turn to
teaching. The change determined his entire subsequent career. The available English
schoolbooks were unsatisfactory, and the war diminished the supply of such as there
were. Webster accordingly set about compiling three elementary books on English, a
spelling book, a grammar, and a reader. These he published in 1783, 1784, and 1785
under the high-sounding title A Grammatical Institute of the English Language. They
were the first books of their kind to be published in this country. The success of the first
part was unexpectedly great. It was soon reissued under the title The American
SpellingBook and in this form went through edition after edition. It is estimated that in a
hundred years, more than 80 million copies of the book were sold. From a profit of less
than a cent a copy Webster derived most of his income throughout his life. The influence
of the little book was enormous and will be discussed below. Here it is sufficient to note
that it had the effect of turning its author’s attention to questions of language and enabled
him to devote himself to a number of projects of a linguistic kind. In 1789 he published a
volume of Dissertations on the English Language, with Notes Historical and Critical. In
1806 he brought out a small Dictionary, the prelude to his greatest work. This was An
American Dictionary ofthe English Language, published in 1828 in two quarto volumes.
In all of these works and in numerous smaller writings he was animated by a persistent
purpose: to show that the English language in this country was a distinctly American
thing, developing along its own lines, and deserving to be considered from an
independent, American point of view. His selfassurance had its faults as well as its
virtues. It led him to ignore discoveries from Europe that were establishing the principles
of comparative linguistics, and to spend years writing etymologies that were inadequate
even for his time. 17 The etymologies could be replaced eventually by a German scholar,
C.A.F. Mahn, but the sustaining zeal that carried him to the completion of his work drew
on resources of personality more complex and rarer than current knowledge of the
discipline.
In the preface to the first part of the Grammatical Institute Webster says: “The author
wishes to promote the honour and prosperity of the confederated republics of America;
and cheerfully throws his mite into the common treasure of patriotic exertions. This
17
See Allen W.Read, “The Spread of German Linguistic Learning in New England during the
Lifetime of Noah Webster,” American Speech, 41 (1966), 163–81, and Joseph H.Friend, The
Development of American Lexicography, 1798–1864 (The Hague, 1967), pp. 75–79.