Sunday, June 16, 2013

Language Change

We sometimes do not see how much things have changed in our language.  Because we can easily understand things written in English in the early 19th C, we think the changes small.  But this is largely because our own brains smooth over small differences without our noticing.  When they reach a certain level of difficulty and we hesitate, only then do we notice.

What was written was not a reflection of speech.  Not until Mark Twain did that happen.  There are differences, even large differences, even now.  But we put words on the page in imitation of speech far more than even our recent ancestors did.  It didn't all suddenly turn around with Clemens, and formal conventions persist. Light or humorous writers imitate vernacular and politicians flirt with it for effect, but no one talks like a legal brief, an academic paper, or even the most modern (that is to say, instantly out-of-date) liturgies.

Still, there was some similarity of expression, and looking closely at earlier writing can show with some clarity how English has changed in the last one hundred and fifty years.  Reflecting on this can give us some insight into understanding why Shakespeare (1600) now eludes us, and Chaucer (1400) can be read only with notes.


The painter George Healy, writing in the 1860's about going to Paris in the 30's.*
I knew no one in France, I was utterly ignorant of the language, I did not know what I should do when once there, but I was not yet one-and-twenty, and I had a great stock of courage, of inexperience - which is sometimes a great help - and a strong desire to be my very best.
We would say I didn't know anyone in France, or, if avoiding the contraction, did not know. Similarly, though utterly ignorant is understandable to us, and we use both words still in subtly different contexts, very few would write that, unless purposely affecting a more ornate style. We replace should with would, and when once there would likely now have an I got added to it, and might drop the onceI was not yet would be I wasn't even, or I was not even, or perhaps hadn't turned would be substituted. One-and-twenty would be used only for effect now, to suggest a folk song or poem. We might use a half dozen other words before we got to stock of courage, but from there our phrasing would be much the same, except that we would say do my very best instead of be. Also, the quote is only one sentence, with many commas.  Even I would likely break it up, and I would lean more to the older style than most others these days.


*The quote is from David McCullough's The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris, which I am liking very much.

9 comments:

Texan99 said...

It makes me think of Elizabeth Bennet, slightly more archaic yet, who simply said "I am not one and twenty."

james said...

When did the tradition that prose and poetry styles in English should follow Latin models start to fade away?

Der Hahn said...

I've often seen the claim that people in the Civil War era were 'better educated' than we are now. It oftens seems to be based on the florid prose used in many soldier's letters. I think this illustrates one of the reasons why that myth hangs on.

Texan99 said...

I don't know. It's not the floridity of their propose that impresses me, it's the ability to convey a coherent message. You have only to go onto the comment thread of an ordinary newspaper to see how rare that is.

I've always wondered if there wasn't a very strong selection effect, though. Back then, maybe those who were capable of only marginal illiteracy didn't learn to write at all, or were highly unlikely to spend time and resources on trying to stay in touch with friends back home via letter.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

Der Hahn

That would be some of the soldiers who could write, perhaps for others. My reading of Civil War correspondence suggests the opposite - many were barely literate by current standards.

Hmmm...that's worth a post.

Retriever said...

Dear me! My family and I must be complete throwbacks, then. With the exception of "not one and twenty", there was not a single expression in that message that I wouldn't have used in a letter or daily speech. People ask us if we are English, when what they really mean is that we sound odd, old fashioned, and that we still speak almost exactly the way my grandparents and great grandparents and theirs did. With the exception of my swearing and ranting at work with a few close confidantes about the usual tyrannies, injustices, oppressive workloads, latest union scams or management wickedness...

Der Hahn said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Der Hahn said...

AVI - I certainly agree with you on that, and I think Texan99 is making a form of the generalization that I disagree with. Comments on blog posts are often heavy on slang and attempts at phrasing that might sound clever when spoken but fall flat when read without a conversational context. In other words, they are often writing attempting to imitate vernacular speech. Since changes in our written language happen more slowly I think we interpret using old-fashioned language and formal style as the mark of being well educated, and the archaic style (which was simply the way people of that era wrote if they could) of Civil War writing fools us.

Texan99 said...

DH: Maybe so, but I honestly think my positive reaction to some old soldiers' letters is not a reaction to any absence of slang or informality, but an appreciation of their ability to describe actions or feelings coherently. The letters that impressed me they weren't necessarily all that formal. I don't object to the vernacular, or a jocular style; they often lend themselves quite well to the expression of vivid ideas.

It may be nothing more than the fact that people wouldn't have tended to preserve or quote from the more incoherent 19th-century letters home. If someone is still quoting excerpts from internet comments in 150 years, presumably they'll choose the ones that make a comprehensible point! It may be that the Civil War letters I never see are the ones that were rambling or confused in their exposition, leaving their readers with just the "Whaa . . . ?" impression we can get today from reading a muddled comment on a news article in the local rag.

On the other hand, there may have been an important cultural shift from stern schoolmarms to "express yourself self-indulgently" pedagogical fads.