1324-1384, in prose; Chaucer, 1340-1400, in poetry. They wrote in English, and their influence upon the plastic language of their time, and upon all English writers succeeding, is simply incalculable.

We may add that the adoption of Anglo-Saxon by the Norman was greatly facilitated by the fact that the French he was using had become sadly corrupt. That which he brought over from the Continent was not the French of Paris, but the degenerate tongue of Normandy, and so at best was provincial, a mere patois. But during the centuries of its use in England it had been kept from free contact with the dialect of Normandy, and so had deteriorated even from this imperfect standard—had become, as Lounsbury aptly puts it, a mere patois of a patois. The Norman himself had grown ashamed of it, and was not unwilling to part with it.

XII. The New Tongue-its Composition.-When now we say that by 1400, and even earlier, English was generally used, what are we really saying? What do we mean by English? Just what in Section IX. we said we should mean when we applied the term to a language. We mean a speech not in existence by itself till long after the Norman Conquest; a speech neither Anglo-Saxon nor French, but Anglo-Saxon and French; a speech to which both of these contributed, to form which both of these were combined. For the adoption of words was not all done by the Norman. While he borrowed many from the Saxon, the Saxon borrowed some from the Norman. What by mutual giving and taking the two jointly formed is the English, a compromise, a compound; one speech after the union, but not univocal, not all of a piece, every speaker of which is bilingual.

We have hitherto called the Conqueror Norman-French.

tongue brought over by the

But it is time now to say

that in reality it was Latin. Just before the Christian era Julius Cæsar subdued the people then in possession of what is now France, and imposed upon them his language, which was that of Rome. This language, used for a thousand years by a people to whom it was not the mother-tongue, the Normans, of still another alien stock, acquired, and brought into England. Spoken a whole millennium by those whose vernacular it displaced, and from them learned by strangers, the words had lost much of their original form and meaning. Outwardly they were almost invariably shortened. By a dropping of vowels or consonants, or of both, two or three syllables had been squeezed into one; as, French súr, our sure, from original Latin securus; French règle, our rule, from Latin regula; French île, English isle, from insula. And sometimes the final and unaccented syllable or syllables seem not to have been caught by the subject Gaul; or, if caught by his ear, were not retained on his tongue. The Latin domina, for instance, appears in French as the truncated dame; medius, as midi; and malum, as mal. Still, though changed, the French words are Latin; their essential identity with the words used by the countrymen of Horace and Virgil is easily seen.

We spoke in Section VII. of the Celtic and of the Scandinavian of the First Period, and of the Latin of the First and Second Periods-words from these languages taken up by the Anglo-Saxon and carried on into English. Here we add that these Norman words, introduced in the centuries succeeding the Conquest, and entering into union with the Anglo-Saxon to form the English, constitute the Latin of the Third Period.

But as the original Celtic of Britain had Latin words in it, so this Latin of the Normans had Celtic words in it. The

Gauls themselves were Celts; and it could not be that, when forced to adopt the Latin tongue, they would surrender every word of their own speech. Indeed, in the province of Brittany the native tongue was not exterminated, and, as Breton, still survives. The Celtic words brought into English by the incoming of the Normans constitute the Celtic of the Second Period. A few of these words are :

Baggage, bar, barrel, basin, button, carry, pottage, truant, varlet, and vassal.

Whatever Celtic words have been admitted into English since, whether Irish, Welsh, Gaelic, or Breton—and

Clan, claymore, flimsy, kern, pibroch, plaid, spalpeen, and whiskey are samples of these-constitute the Celtic of the Third Period. Whatever Scandinavian words have come into English since the Norman Conquest, and, according to Professor Skeat, their name is legion, such as,

Are, call, drag, gabble, grab, gravy, hap, hinge, hurry, lug, lunch, pod, ransack, sag, scratch, scream, shirt, snug, stutter, teem, whim, and whisk,

we call Scandinavian of the Second Period.

The Norman-French words in English were largely spoken words-words dropping from the tongue, and learned by the ear, both in France and afterward in England. But there was another large influx of Latin words consequent upon that great quickening of European mind known as the Renaissance, or Revival of Learning, the first waves of which touched English shores about the opening of the sixteenth century. The New Learning, as the historian Green calls it, and the new ideas to which it gave birth, demanded new words; and from 1550 to 1660, Latin was the

But the Latin of

store on which writers began to draw. these learned men was the Latin of the eye and the pen, taken directly from Latin literature; or, if from French as well, it was from French books, and was not that spoken by the people. The Latin words thus transferred to English had suffered then, and have suffered since, little or no change, and may readily be distinguished from the Latin of the Third Period by their fuller form. These Latin words, brought in to meet the needs of scholars and their coming has not yet wholly ceased—are called the Latin of the Fourth Period.

Greek has a very respectable contingent in English-five per cent. of the whole vocabulary, Trench estimates. Perhaps half this number would be a better guess. They are largely scientific and technical, mostly "inkhorn" terms, rarely on the tongue in conversation. They are such as :—

Amphibious, anachronism, anodyne, barometer, blaspheme, catarrh, catastrophe, cynosure, decagon, dilemma, doxology, electric, exegesis, glossary, heliocentric, heterodox, hydrophobia, hyperbole, hypotenuse, idiom, isosceles, labyrinth, lexicon, mechanic, metamorphosis, monosyllable, necrology, octagon, oxygen, phenomenon, phrenology, polemical, rhetoric, sporadic, squirrel, surgeon, synonym, telegraph, telephone, thermometer, therapeutic, trophy, tyrant, zone, and zoölogy. From the Hebrew, we have such words as :—

Amen, bedlam, cabal, cherub, cinnamon, hallelujah, hosannah, Jehovah, jubilee, manna, sabbath, Satan, seraph, shekel, and shibboleth.

The English race has penetrated all seas, and has had intercourse, commercial, literary, or other, with the peoples of all lands. From most of these it has brought home words which it has naturalized and made good English.

From the Italian, we have imported such words as :

Alarm, bagatelle, balcony, balustrade, bankrupt, bust, canto, citadel,

concert, contraband, cupola, ditto, duet, gondola, granite, guitar, influenza, lagoon, lava, madrigal, malaria, motto, mustache, niche, opera, pantaloon, pedant, piano, pistol, portico, quota, regatta, ruffian, serenade, sonnet, soprano, stanza, studio, tirade, trio, trombone, umbrella, vista, and volcano.

From the Spanish, such words as :

Armada, barricade, booby, bravado, buffalo, capsize, cargo, cask, cigar, comrade, cork, creole, embargo, flotilla, indigo, merino, mosquito, mulatto, negro, renegade, savanna, sherry, tornado, and vanilla.

From the Portuguese, such as :—

Caste, cocoa-nut, commodore, fetich, lasso, molasses, palaver, and tank.

From the Dutch, such as :—

Aloof, ballast, bluff, boor, brackish, brandy, bumpkin, clinker, dapper, elope, fop, gas, growl, holster, hustle, jeer, knapsack, landscape, loiter, luff, measles, morass, mumps, ogle, rant, reef, skates, skipper, sloop, smuggle, wagon, yacht, and yawl.

From the German, such as :

Dutch, feldspar, huzzah, loafer, meerschaum, nickel, plunder, poodle, quartz, swindler, trull, and zinc.

From the Slavonic, such as :

Calash, czar, knout, polka, sable, slave, and steppe.

From the Persian, such as :—

Bazaar, caravan, check, checkers, chess, divan, ghoul, hazard, horde, jackal, jar, lemon, lilac, mummy, musk, orange, rice, sash, shawl, and veranda.

From the Hindu, such as :

Banyan, calico, chintz, jungle, loot, pagoda, palanquin, sepoy, shampoo, sugar, and toddy.

From the Turkish, such as :—

Bey, janissary, ottoman, and tulip.