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various times by persons who appeared to be worthy of credit, led me to reflect upon the subject; and my reflections brought me, by theoretical reasoning, to the same point at which my informants had arrived by practical observation.
In aristocracies, language must naturally partake cf that state of repose in which every thing remains. Few new words are coined, because few new things are made; and even if new things were made, they would be designated by known words, whose meaning has been determined by tradition. If it happens that the human mind bestirs itself at length, or is roused by light breaking in from without, the novel expressions which are introduced are characterized by a degree of learning, intelligence, and philosophy which shows that they do not originate in a democracy. After the fall of Constantinople had turned the tide of science and literature toward the west, the French language was almost immediately invaded by a multitude of new words, which had all Greek or Latin roots. An erudite neologism then sprang up in France, which was confined to the educated classes, and which produced no sensible effect, or at least a very gradual one, upon the people.
All the nations of Europe successively exhibited the same change. Milton alone introduced more than six hundred words into the English language, almost all derived from the Latin, the Greek, or the Hebrew.[1] The constant agitation which prevails in a democratic community tends unceasingly, on the contrary, to change the character of the language, as it does the aspect of affairs. In the midst of this general stir and competition of minds, a great number of new ideas are formed, old ideas are lost, or reappear, or are subdivided into an infinite variety of minor shades.
- ↑ [I am at a loss to conceive whence the author drew so startling, and probably erroneous, an assertion. Certainly as the ‘fabbro della lingua materna,’ Milton must occupy a rank second to that of the great poets and divines of the reigns of Elizabeth and James. Nor indeed is the example very happily chosen, since Milton's prose writings were addressed to a pamphlet-reading people, among whom that same principle which founded the democracies of New England, had made very extensive progress. I imagine Montaigne to be a perfect example of M. de Tocqueville's meaning; his style was learned to his contemporaries, and antiquated before the best age of French literature. But happily for modern English, it has retained much more of its afïinity to the language of those who were princes of learning in the early time, than the French diction of the eighteenth and nineteenth
