Book Description

From the INTRODUCTORY. Writers upon the history of language are very careful to insist that the process of development or evolution of speech takes place in the living, spoken language, and not in written documents. It is pointed out that language changes in the very act of speaking, that changes in pronunciation, accidence, and the rest come about gradually, and by imperceptible degrees, within the lifetime of a single generation, and in transmission from one generation to another. A history of a language is an account of these slight and gradual changes, the cumulative results of which, in the course of several generations, may be very remarkable. In a primitive age, the written form of a language is, in the main, a reproduction of the spoken form, and follows as nearly as may be, though often lagging somewhat behind, the changing fortunes of the latter. If a language ceases to be spoken as a normal, living means of intercourse between man and man, the written form can no longer change, but must remain fixed, since it must consist merely of a reproduction of ancient models; there is no longer a living, changing speech to mould its character and keep it up to date. It is an unfortunate circumstance for students of the history of a language, but one from which there is no escape, that they are dependent upon written documents for a knowledge of all but the most recent developments, since, in the nature of things, they can gain no direct and personal access to the spoken language earlier than the speech of the oldest living person they may know. We are bound, therefore, to make the best use we can of the written records of the past, always bearing in mind that our question in respect to the writers of these documents is ever-How did they speak? What fact of pronunciation is revealed by, or concealed beneath, this or that spelling? Our business in this book is mainly concerned with English as it has been spoken during the last four or five centuries; we are not attempting a history of literary form, and our interest in written documents, whether they rise to the dignity of works of literature, or be of a humbler character, is primarily in proportion to the light these compositions throw upon the spoken English of the period in which they were written....