If we have left Professor Krapp's book 25 to the end, it is a place of honour. This weighty work offers more than 700 large pages of information concerning the history and present position of English in the United States, and is full of what is new or little known and recognized on either side of the Atlantic-especially on this. On this side we have now a far more authoritative work than ever before to refer to, the result of many years of patient study and collection by a careful scholar free from all violent prejudices, one who is able to hold a fair balance, with no more bias than is due to the reasoned preferences of a patriotism none will quarrel with. It is, perhaps, true that the movement is slow, at times even heavy, and not without repetition. It holds the attention somewhat uncertainly, in spite of the extreme interest of its theme for all speakers or students of English. But it is no light task to be the general over so huge an army of facts. The headings under which the matter is grouped give some idea of the wealth contained, but they do not in themselves indicate all the varied information and curious detail that is actually worked into these very long chapters: The Mother Tongue, Vocabulary, Proper Names, Literary Dialects (e.g. rustic, Negro, Indian), Style, American Spelling, American Dictionaries— Pronunciation, Unstressed syllables, Inflections and Syntax, Bibliography (very extensive), Indexes. The occasional glimpses into the history and formation of American place-names, which often appear to repeat at large and in times so much nearer to us the conditions which we earnestly study here in little; the remarkable interest of the seventeenthand eighteenth-century town-records, whether from the point of view of their spellings, their vocabulary, or the social conditions they recall these may be mentioned among the points that have an especial attraction. It is impossible when reading this book for the imagination not to be seized by a sudden apprehension of the vast and intricate history into which these chapters have adventured: the supreme philological event of which we have certain knowledge, the transplantation of the language of a small country and its spread and ramification over enormous regions to find not one but a thousand new soils, atmospheres, and homes. 25 The English Language in America, by G. P. Krapp. New York: Century Co. London: O.U.P. Two vols. pp. xiii +377 and 355. 42s. Not that the book attempts any steady and progressive unfolding of this history like a panorama. This is probably impossible. But of the conflicting tendencies towards linguistic uniformity and towards disintegration in this vast area, of the relations of language and politics, an account has been attempted, not without success. If on the subject, not unimportant, of the relations of the American and 'British' varieties of English in the most recent period Professor Krapp seems disappointing, it is from the very judicial and non-committal spirit of his utterances and implications, not from his partisanship. But in order to avoid crude prejudice it is not necessary to minimize real differences. If in careful and studied writing, of which this book is an excellent example, the differences are not very obvious, it is still possible to see in its very coldness and formality the dangers of an artificial uniformity veiling fundamental divergence. To some it seems obvious that petrifaction and death ultimately await it, if the attempt is made too long to maintain a language as a literary or cultured medium over areas too wide and of too divergent a history to preserve any permanent community. Whether we endeavour to maintain the different varieties of English in vigorous life now, or in the future seek to restore life after 'English' has become a universalized but dead booklatin, divergence into distinct idioms is ultimately the only thing that will achieve the object. To the American author, of course, it does not appear so clear as it does to us that the problem is no longer that of the freedom of America and her 'illustrious vernacular', but of the freedom of England. Sir Walter Raleigh in a speech on 'Some Gains of the War' made in February 1918 did not escape the notice of Dr. Spies when he said: 'the clearest gain of all is that after the War the English language will have such a position as never before. The greatest gain of all, the entry into the War of America, assures the triumph of our common language and our common ideals.' We have indicated above what we feel about linguistic triumph. Some even now are found to criticize the expression 'common language'; more might question 'common ideals' (and without necessarily implying any judgement concerning relative values); but to all it should be apparent that this triumph, if it takes place, is only likely to be 'common' if it is predominantly or wholly American. Whatever be the special destiny and peculiar future splendour of the language of the United States, it is still possible to hope that our fate may be kept distinct. And it is possible in The English Language in America to find reasons for making that hope more earnest. poetic vocabulary of Old English times was, however, much richer than that of any later period. It is now difficult to distinguish the shades of meaning expressed in the numerous poetic synonyms of Old English; etymology is usually the best guide, but it is an uncertain one. Professor Wyld illustrates the use of etymology, and by comparative investigation of cognates reclaims the original meaning of holm, often applied in poetry to the sea. In its original application to the sea the word meant 'wave-crest', and traces of this use still appear in some poems. The kennings of Anglo-Saxon poetry are compared by Professor Wyld with the periphrastic metaphors of eighteenth-century poets. Logically such an expression as sealtyda gelac 'surging of the salt waves' for 'sea' is the same in principle as the later 'watery plains'. In artistic effect, however, there is a vast difference between them; and Professor Wyld's estimate of the poetic value of the Old English metaphors is worth attention. The metaphors and epithets applied to the sea, he observes, after illustrating them, 'show that the poets had really felt and seen its aspects; they do not merely repeat, parrot-like, conventional commonplaces, but record a genuine emotion in words that evoke it in the reader'. Poetry in Old English times was even more conventional than now, but its conventions had more life. There is a wealth of illustrative examples in the essay, and they are on the whole skilfully translated. Phoenix 33-9 he renders thus: Serene the plain, its sunny woodland gleams; Fair wood whose foison ne'er declines, whose flowers So God ordained; and whatsoe'er the time, Winter or summer, still the grove shall stand The reader will readily agree that the atmosphere of the original is here produced very happily. The arrangement of the matter at times seems too severely categorical, and the relation of the categories is not always made clear; but the matter itself is of great interest, and the treatment is original and fresh. Professor Wyld's essay is an admirable example of the use of philological knowledge as an instrument of interpretation. His remarks on siderable amount of revision and correction has been made, some sections being entirely rewritten. The virtues of clearness and comprehensiveness in this work are already so well known from the previous editions that there is no need to emphasize them here. In some details, however, there is still need for revision. For example, the statement still appears that the voicing of open voiceless consonants which is known as Verner's Law took place 'after the completion of the first sound-shifting', i. e. later than the operation of Grimm's Law. The more conventional view that the voicing of consonants in accordance with Verner's Law was accomplished before the final change of Grimm's Law seems preferable. The reduced grade of short e (i. e. b or e) in IndoEuropean, also, is of importance in its Germanic developments, and ought to be recognized in a grammar which purports to trace Old English sounds to their ultimate origins. The comparative of sceort 'short' is still wrongly given as sciertra; though the actual form scyrtra is also that which accords with the authors' note to § 51. But these are merely matters of oversight and not of great importance. The new edition of the grammar is to be highly recommended to all comparative students of Old English. In literary criticism there are two works which come under notice in this chapter. This is unusual, for the critics of late years have not shown much interest in the earliest period of our literature. The more valuable of these two is an essay (of 53 pages) by Professor Wyld on Diction and Imagery in AngloSaxon Poetry, published in the Essays and Studies by members of the English Association, vol. XI. One of the chief objects of this essay is to illustrate the racial tendencies of English literary art which appear in Old English and survive in modern literature, and to show that, although formally there is very little continuity of Old English traditions beyond the Middle Ages, the artistic feeling of our oldest literature and its instinctive forms of expression recur in later English. The Anglo-Saxons kept words and phrases in poetic use which were different from the terms of every day speech, just as modern English poets do (and for that matter almost all poets of any language). Such words as halep, beorn, freca used in poetry for man' are paralleled by later swain; blanca horse' by later courser, steed; and so on. The specially |