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I HAVE Somewhere read of an an eminent person, who used in his private offices of devotion to give thanks to heaven that he was born a Frenchman: for my own part I look upon it as a peculiar blessing that I was born an Englishman. Among other reasons, I think myself very happy in my country, as the language of it is wonderfully adapted to a man who is sparing of his words, and an enemy to loquacity.

As I have frequently reflected on my good fortune in this particular, I shall communicate to the public my speculations upon the English tongue, not doubting but they will be acceptable to all my curious readers.

The English delight in silence more than any other European nation, if the remarks which are made on us by foreigners are true. Our discourse is not kept up in conversation, but falls into more pauses and intervals than in our neighbouring countries; as it is observed, that the matter of our writings is thrown much closer together, and lies in a narrower compass than is usual in the works of foreign authors: for, to favour our natural taciturnity, when we are obliged to utter our thoughts, we do it

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in the shortest way we are able, and give as quick a birth to our

conceptions as possible.

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This humour shews itself in several remarks that we may make upon the English language. As first of all by its abounding in monosyllables, which gives us an opportunity of delivering our thoughts in few sounds. This indeed takes off from the elegance of our tongue, but at the same time expresses our ideas in the readiest manner, and consequently answers the first design of speech better than the multitude of syllables, which make the words of other languages more tunable and sonorous. The sounds of our English words are commonly like those of string music, short and transient, which rise and perish upon a single touch; those of other languages are like the notes of wind instruments, sweet and swelling, and lengthened out into variety of modulation.

In the next place we may observe, that where the words are not monosyllables, we often make them so, as much as lies in our power, by our rapidity of pronuciation; as it generally happens in most of our long words which are derived from the Latin, where we contract the length of the syllables that gives them a grave and solemn air in their own language, to make them more proper for dispatch, and more conformable to the genius of our tongue. This we may find in a multitude of words, as Liberty, Conspiracy, Theatre, Orator, &c.

The same natural aversion to loquacity has of late years made a very considerable alteration in our language, by closing in one syllable the termination of præterperfect tense, as in the words drown'd, walk'd, arriv'd, for drowned, walked, arrived, which has very much disfigured the tongue, and turned a tenth part of

1 "It is," says Swift to Stella, in one of his journal letters, "The English tongue, or the English language." The words in question are used here indiscriminately.-C.

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SPECTATOR.

[No. 135

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It is perhaps this humour of speaking no more than we needs must, which has so miserably curtailed some of our words, that in familiar writings and conversations they often lose all but their first syllables, as in mob.rep. pos. incog. and the like; and as all ridiculous words make their first entry into a language by familiar phrases, I dare not answer for these that they will not in time be looked upon as part of our tongue. We sec some of our poets have been so indiscreet as to imitate Hudibras's doggrel expressions in their serious compositions, by throwing out the signs of our substantives, which are essential to the English language. Nay, this humour of shortening our language had once run so far, that some of our celebrated authors, among whom we may reckon Sir Roger L'Estrange in particular, began to prune their words of all superfluous letters, as they termed them, in order to adjust the spelling to the pronunciation; which would have confounded all our etymologies, and have quite destroyed our tongue.

We may here likewise observe, that our proper names, when familiarized in English, generally dwindle to monosyllables, whereas in other modern languages, they receive a softer turn on this occasion, by the addition of a new syllable. Nick in Italian is Nicolini; Jack, in French Janot; and so of the rest.

There is another particular in our language which is a great instance of our frugality in words, and that is the suppressing of several particles which must be produced in other tongues to make a sentence intelligible: this often perplexes the best writers, when they find the relatives whom, which, or they, at their mercy, whether they may have admission or not, and will never be decided till we have something like an academy, that by the best authorities and rules drawn from the analogy of languages, shall settle all controversies between grammar and idiom.

I have only considered our language, as it shews the genius

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