The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 6 (of 9): Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and PrivateJefferson, Thomas
History
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 6 (of 9): Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private
Jefferson, Thomas
United States -- Politics and government -- 1775-1783; United States -- Politics and government -- 1783-1865
The second source of composition is of one family of roots with another.
The Greek avails itself of this most abundantly, and beautifully. The
English once did it freely, while in its Anglo-Saxon form, _e. g._
+boc-cræft+, book-craft, learning, +riht-geleaf-full+, right-belief-ful,
orthodox. But it has lost by desuetude much of this branch of composition,
which it is desirable however to resume.
If we wish to be assured from experiment of the effect of a judicious
spirit of Neology, look at the French language. Even before the
revolution, it was deemed much more copious than the English; at a time,
too, when they had an academy which endeavored to arrest the progress of
their language, by fixing it to a Dictionary, out of which no word was
ever to be sought, used, or tolerated. The institution of parliamentary
assemblies in 1789, for which their language had no opposite terms or
phrases, as having never before needed them, first obliged them to adopt
the Parliamentary vocabulary of England; and other new circumstances
called for corresponding new words; until by the number of these adopted,
and by the analogies for adoption which they have legitimated, I think
we may say with truth that a Dictionaire Neologique of these would be
half as large as the dictionary of the academy; and that at this time
it is the language in which every shade of idea, distinctly perceived
by the mind, may be more exactly expressed, than in any language at
this day spoken by man. Yet I have no hesitation in saying that the
English language is founded on a broader base, native and adopted, and
capable, with the like freedom of employing its materials, of becoming
superior to that in copiousness and euphony. Not indeed by holding fast
to Johnson's Dictionary; not by raising a hue and cry against every word
he has not licensed; but by encouraging and welcoming new compositions
of its elements. Learn from Lye and Benson what the language would now
have been if restrained to their vocabularies. Its enlargement must be
the consequence, to a certain degree, of its transplantation from the
latitude of London into every climate of the globe; and the greater the
degree the more precious will it become as the organ of the development
of the human mind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account