It is in such belief that this work has been planned and written. It gives a brief account of the early peoples that occupied Britain, and of their contributions to our vocabulary. This account is followed by a history of the two great conquests the Anglo-Saxon and the Norman-and of the blending into our own of the tongues of these two races. The grammatical changes of the Anglo-Saxon noun, adjective, pronoun, and verb, in passing into English, are detailed. The two great elements of our vocabulary-the Anglo-Saxon and the Latin-and their functions in actual use, are given and illustrated. Over two hundred groups of synonyms are carefully discriminated; and in word-analysis and wordbuilding we have dealt with at least two hundred and fifty of the most fruitful Latin, Anglo-Saxon, and Greek roots in our language. The meanings of the roots, and of the prefixes and suffixes combining with them, are easily learned. The mastery, thus attained, of multitudes of English compounds will be of the utmost service to the pupil in his reading of authors and in his own composition, and justifies the giving of so much time and space to word-analysis and word-building.

We give the decisions of usage upon a dozen or more vital grammatical and verbal questions yet in debate. For this office we have been qualifying ourselves by years of reading specially directed to this end. It need astonish no one that in almost every instance we found ourselves in open conflict with many critics who, during the past few years, have so oracularly taught us how not to say that which we have to say. In the more comprehensive work soon to appear a work into which this, in fuller form, will enter the verdict of usage on scores and scores of other mooted points will be reported. We have but opened the subject in this volume.

The place in the curriculum of study for which this work is designed is near that held by rhetoric-immediately before or after it, we think; certainly before that of English literature.

With one exception we need not here name the authors consulted in the preparation of the work. This exception is Professor Lounsbury. We have for years used his English Language as a text-book. Our debt to him of which we are conscious is not small; but smaller, doubtless, than that of which we are unconscious. Especially was his book helpful in assigning the dates of changes spoken of in chapters IV.-VII.

The proof-sheets of this work have had the careful criticism of an eminent professor in one of our largest colleges. His valuable suggestions have greatly aided us.

June, 1891.

TO THE TEACHER.

As this book has been prepared for pupils studying English in the elementary, as well as in the advanced, classes, we suggest to the teachers using it with elementary grades that they read with the class all the chapters up to the tenth, holding the pupil only to the more essential points; but, that, from this chapter on, lessons be regularly assigned.

We are confident that teachers will find that this study can be made exceedingly profitable.

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

CHAPTER I.

THE EARLY CONQUESTS AND LANGUAGES OF BRITAIN.

I. Classification of Languages.-It goes without saying that the languages spoken and understood by the human race are not the same. A great part of our education, indeed, consists in learning living languages other than our own, in translating what is written in them into our

own.

But languages widely differing now may once have been the same. A people overcrowding its native valley or plateau breaks up. Migrations take place. The masses, moving in different directions, thereafter hold little or no intercourse with each other. Climates, soils, food, occupations, henceforth differ; and this diversity of environment fosters in these separated peoples differences of custom, spirit, and character; and, what is specially in point, differences far-reaching, if not radical, in the words used by them. These differences become in time so marked that neither the languages nor the peoples speaking them are longer thought to be akin. And yet the relationship of these tongues may not be wholly lost; resemblances may remain sufficient for identification. Their original same

ness may be proved by the presence in them of the same. words, few though they be and disguised by change-a presence not to be accounted for by borrowing or by a common conquest; and it may be proved also by traces among them of a common grammar. These traces, verbal and grammatical, betray community of origin, and furnish the basis for linguistic classification.

Grouping the known languages with respect to these and other characteristics, we have such families as the Chinese, the Polynesian, the Scythian, the Semitic, and others; and, above them all in importance, that group among which the English is to be counted, namely:

II. The Indo-European Family.-Of this group, or family, there are ten members-three Asiatic and seven European. Seven of the ten have long been recognized, (1) The Indian, or Sanskrit, used in Hindostan; (2) the Iranian, or Ancient and Modern Persian; (3) the Hellenic-Ancient and Modern Greek; (4) the Italic, that is the Latin and its descendants; viz., the Italian, the Spanish, the Portuguese, the French, the Provençal, the Rheto-Romanic, and the Wallachian; (5) the Slavonic-preeminently the Russian; (6) the Celtic, or Keltic, made up of the Cymric and the Gaelic; and (7) the Teutonic, subdivided into the Gothic, the Scandinavian, the High German, and the Low German. Into the Low German the English falls. To these seven, recent scholars have added (8) the Lithuanian, closely related to the Slavonic; (9) the Armenian; and (10) the Albanian.

These languages, now so unlike each other that until this century their kinship was scarcely suspected, were once the same speech, spoken by a people dwelling together long enough to build up a respectable vocabulary and a