Customer Reviews

Growth and Structure of the English Language

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While researching for an essay on the Scandinavian influences on the English language, I found Jespersen's indepth and >clear< analysis to be of great use--especially when one considers the droll, dry, PC-speak of so-called 'modern' linguistic inquiry

-i.e. save yourself a lot of coffee and put Jespersen in the shopping cart (no book on English is a more enjoyable read).

Before reading this book you should read about the history of the various invasions of Britain, by the Germanic tribes, by the Scandinavians, and by the Normans.

The historical study of languages is of great use to the study of general history because it tells us about the nature of the contacts of peoples (§ 31). An important principle is that people try to speak a foreign language purely, while they may introduce words from the foreign language into their own language (§ 37). If a people speaking a language are good at making knives, then people speaking another language may adopt words for knives and knife production from that language. Exceptionally, many commonplace Scandinavian words were adopted into English. Jespersen says that this is because a large number of Scandinavians settled in Britain and because the two peoples were equally civilized; on the other hand the Normans were a separate ruling class and the words adopted from them were aristocratic, having to do with government, military, law and fashion.

I learned many neat facts by reading this book. "by" meant town, village in Danish (e.g. Derby, Whitby), so by-law=town law (§ 74). Old English had the word eagthyrel for window, eag=eye and thyrel=hole, and the word for nostril was nosthyrel, nose hole (§ 75). Also, even though someone can be depended on, they are dependable rather than depend-on-able, and similarly for objectionable, available, reliable, indispensable, unaccountable (§ 109). There are many instances of English words with a corresponding adjective taken from Latin: mouth/oral, nose/nasal, star/stellar, etc. (§ 131). The use in mathematics of the letter x as a sign for an unknown quantity started in Spain because the Spanish word for the Arabic word for "thing" starts with x (§ 155). An infinitive in English doesn't need to come with "to", for instance "I made him go". There are examples of placing an adverb between to and the infinitive as early as the fourteenth century, but they do not become common until the latter half of the nineteenth century (§ 221).

I bought the ninth edition (1956) for 200 yen, so I can't really complain! The book fascinates me because while it is very informative and a showcase of Jesperson's erudition, it also is flawed by his anglophilia and sexism. "Nevertheless, there is one expression that continually comes to my mind whenever I think of the English language and compare it with others : it seems to me positively and expressly masculine, it is the language of a grown-up man and has very little childish or feminine about it." p. 2 Other languages are weak and childish -- on the Hawaiian language: "Can any one be in doubt that even if such a language sound pleasantly and be full of music and harmony the total impression is childlike and effeminate? "(read on) p. 3