A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2
John Stuart Mill · en
3. +The Spoken Language and the Written Language-- a Caution.+-- We must
not forget what has been said about a language,-- that it is not a
printed thing-- not a set of black marks upon paper, but that it is in
truest truth a +tongue+ or a +speech+. Hence we must be careful to
distinguish between the +spoken+ language and the +written+ or +printed+
language; between the language of the +ear+ and the language of the
+eye+; between the language of the +mouth+ and the language of the
+dictionary+; between the +moving+ vocabulary of the market and the
street, and the +fixed+ vocabulary that has been catalogued and
imprisoned in our dictionaries. If we can only keep this in view, we
shall find that, though there are more Latin words in our vocabulary
than English, the English words we possess are +used+ in speaking a
hundred times, or even a thousand times, oftener than the Latin words.
It is the genuine English words that have life and movement; it is they
that fly about in houses, in streets, and in markets; it is they that
express with greatest force our truest and most usual sentiments-- our
inmost thoughts and our deepest feelings. Latin words are found often
enough in books; but, when an English man or woman is deeply moved, he
speaks pure English and nothing else. Words are the coin of human
intercourse; and it is the native coin of pure English with the native
stamp that is in daily circulation.
4. +A Diagram of English.+-- If we were to try to represent to the eye
the proportions of the different elements in our vocabulary, as it is
found in the dictionary, the diagram would take something like the
following form:--
Diagram of the English Language.
+-----------------------------------------------------+
| ENGLISH WORDS. |
+-----------------------------------------------------+
| LATIN WORDS |
| (including Norman-French, which are also Latin). |
+--------------+--------------------------------------+
| GREEK WORDS. | Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, |
| | Hebrew, Arabic, Hindustani, Persian, |
| | Malay, American, etc. etc. |
+--------------+--------------------------------------+