16. Chapter XVI: The Effect Of Democracy On Language
If the reader has rightly understood what I have already
said on the subject of literature in general, he will have no
difficulty in comprehending that species of influence which a
democratic social condition and democratic institutions may
exercise over language itself, which is the chief instrument of
thought.
American authors may truly be said to live more in England
than in their own country; since they constantly study the
English writers, and take them every day for their models. But
such is not the case with the bulk of the population, which is
more immediately subjected to the peculiar causes acting upon the
United States. It is not then to the written, but to the spoken
language that attention must be paid, if we would detect the
modifications which the idiom of an aristocratic people may
undergo when it becomes the language of a democracy.
Englishmen of education, and more competent judges than I
can be myself of the nicer shades of expression, have frequently
assured me that the language of the educated classes in the
United States is notably different from that of the educated
classes in Great Britain. They complain not only that the
Americans have brought into use a number of new words -the
difference and the distance between the two countries might
suffice to explain that much -but that these new words are more
especially taken from the jargon of parties, the mechanical arts,
or the language of trade. They assert, in addition to this, that
old English words are often used by the Americans in new
acceptations; and lastly, that the inhabitants of the United
States frequently intermingle their phraseology in the strangest
manner, and sometimes place words together which are always kept
apart in the language of the mother-country. These remarks,
which were made to me at 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 of that
state of repose in which everything 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 towards 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. 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. The consequence is, that many words
must fall into desuetude, and others must be brought into use.
Democratic nations love change for its own sake; and this is
seen in their language as much as in their politics. Even when
they do not need to change words, they sometimes feel a wish to
transform them. The genius of a democratic people is not only
shown by the great number of words they bring into use, but also
by the nature of the ideas these new words represent. Amongst
such a people the majority lays down the law in language as well
as in everything else; its prevailing spirit is as manifest in
that as in other respects. But the majority is more engaged in
business than in study -in political and commercial interests
than in philosophical speculation or literary pursuits. Most of
the words coined or adopted for its use will therefore bear the
mark of these habits; they will mainly serve to express the wants
of business, the passions of party, or the details of the public
administration. In these departments the language will
constantly spread, whilst on the other hand it will gradually
lose ground in metaphysics and theology.
As to the source from which democratic nations are wont to
derive their new expressions, and the manner in which they go to
work to coin them, both may easily be described. Men living in
democratic countries know but little of the language which was
spoken at Athens and at Rome, and they do not care to dive into
the lore of antiquity to find the expression they happen to want.
If they have sometimes recourse to learned etymologies, vanity
will induce them to search at the roots of the dead languages;
but erudition does not naturally furnish them with its resources.
The most ignorant, it sometimes happens, will use them most. The
eminently democratic desire to get above their own sphere will
often lead them to seek to dignify a vulgar profession by a Greek
or Latin name. The lower the calling is, and the more remote
from learning, the more pompous and erudite is its appellation.
Thus the French rope-dancers have transformed themselves into
acrobates and funambules.
In the absence of knowledge of the dead languages,
democratic nations are apt to borrow words from living tongues;
for their mutual intercourse becomes perpetual, and the
inhabitants of different countries imitate each other the more
readily as they grow more like each other every day.
But it is principally upon their own languages that
democratic nations attempt to perpetrate innovations. From time
to time they resume forgotten expressions in their vocabulary,
which they restore to use; or they borrow from some particular
class of the community a term peculiar to it, which they
introduce with a figurative meaning into the language of daily
life. Many expressions which originally belonged to the
technical language of a profession or a party, are thus drawn
into general circulation.
The most common expedient employed by democratic nations to
make an innovation in language consists in giving some unwonted
meaning to an expression already in use. This method is very
simple, prompt, and convenient; no learning is required to use it
aright, and ignorance itself rather facilitates the practice; but
that practice is most dangerous to the language. When a
democratic people doubles the meaning of a word in this way, they
sometimes render the signification which it retains as ambiguous
as that which it acquires. An author begins by a slight
deflection of a known expression from its primitive meaning, and
he adapts it, thus modified, as well as he can to his subject. A
second writer twists the sense of the expression in another way;
a third takes possession of it for another purpose; and as there
is no common appeal to the sentence of a permanent tribunal which
may definitely settle the signification of the word, it remains
in an ambiguous condition. The consequence is that writers
hardly ever appear to dwell upon a single thought, but they
always seem to point their aim at a knot of ideas, leaving the
reader to judge which of them has been hit. This is a deplorable
consequence of democracy. I had rather that the language should
be made hideous with words imported from the Chinese, the
Tartars, or the Hurons, than that the meaning of a word in our
own language should become indeterminate. Harmony and uniformity
are only secondary beauties in composition; many of these things
are conventional, and, strictly speaking, it is possible to
forego them; but without clear phraseology there is no good
language.
The principle of equality necessarily introduces several
other changes into language. In aristocratic ages, when each
nation tends to stand aloof from all others and likes to have
distinct characteristics of its own, it often happens that
several peoples which have a common origin become nevertheless
estranged from each other, so that, without ceasing to understand
the same language, they no longer all speak it in the same
manner. In these ages each nation is divided into a certain
number of classes, which see but little of each other, and do not
intermingle. Each of these classes contracts, and invariably
retains, habits of mind peculiar to itself, and adopts by choice
certain words and certain terms, which afterwards pass from
generation to generation, like their estates. The same idiom
then comprises a language of the poor and a language of the rich
-a language of the citizen and a language of the nobility -a
learned language and a vulgar one. The deeper the divisions, and
the more impassable the barriers of society become, the more must
this be the case. I would lay a wager, that amongst the castes
of India there are amazing variations of language, and that there
is almost as much difference between the language of the pariah
and that of the Brahmin as there is in their dress. When, on the
contrary, men, being no longer restrained by ranks, meet on terms
of constant intercourse -when castes are destroyed, and the
classes of society are recruited and intermixed with each other,
all the words of a language are mingled. Those which are
unsuitable to the greater number perish; the remainder form a
common store, whence everyone chooses pretty nearly at random.
Almost all the different dialects which divided the idioms of
European nations are manifestly declining; there is no patois in
the New World, and it is disappearing every day from the old
countries.
The influence of this revolution in social conditions is as
much felt in style as it is in phraseology. Not only does
everyone use the same words, but a habit springs up of using them
without discrimination. The rules which style had set up are
almost abolished: the line ceases to be drawn between expressions
which seem by their very nature vulgar, and other which appear to
be refined. Persons springing from different ranks of society
carry the terms and expressions they are accustomed to use with
them, into whatever circumstances they may pass; thus the origin
of words is lost like the origin of individuals, and there is as
much confusion in language as there is in society.
I am aware that in the classification of words there are
rules which do not belong to one form of society any more than to
another, but which are derived from the nature of things. Some
expressions and phrases are vulgar, because the ideas they are
meant to express are low in themselves; others are of a higher
character, because the objects they are intended to designate are
naturally elevated. No intermixture of ranks will ever efface
these differences. But the principle of equality cannot fail to
root out whatever is merely conventional and arbitrary in the
forms of thought. Perhaps the necessary classification which I
pointed out in the last sentence will always be less respected by
a democratic people than by any other, because amongst such a
people there are no men who are permanently disposed by
education, culture, and leisure to study the natural laws of
language, and who cause those laws to be respected by their own
observance of them.
I shall not quit this topic without touching on a feature of
democratic languages, which is perhaps more characteristic of
them than any other. It has already been shown that democratic
nations have a taste, and sometimes a passion, for general ideas,
and that this arises from their peculiar merits and defects.
This liking for general ideas is displayed in democratic
languages by the continual use of generic terms or abstract
expressions, and by the manner in which they are employed. This
is the great merit and the great imperfection of these languages.
Democratic nations are passionately addicted to generic terms or
abstract expressions, because these modes of speech enlarge
thought, and assist the operations of the mind by enabling it to
include several objects in a small compass. A French democratic
writer will be apt to say capacites in the abstract for men of
capacity, and without particularizing the objects to which their
capacity is applied: he will talk about actualites to designate
in one word the things passing before his eyes at the instant;
and he will comprehend under the term eventualites whatever may
happen in the universe, dating from the moment at which he
speaks. Democratic writers are perpetually coining words of this
kind, in which they sublimate into further abstraction the
abstract terms of the language. Nay, more, to render their mode
of speech more succinct, they personify the subject of these
abstract terms, and make it act like a real entity. Thus they
would say in French, "La force des choses veut que les capacites
gouvernent."
I cannot better illustrate what I mean than by my own
example. I have frequently used the word "equality" in an
absolute sense -nay, I have personified equality in several
places; thus I have said that equality does such and such things,
or refrains from doing others. It may be affirmed that the
writers of the age of Louis XIV would not have used these
expressions: they would never have thought of using the word
"equality" without applying it to some particular object; and
they would rather have renounced the term altogether than have
consented to make a living personage of it.
These abstract terms which abound in democratic languages,
and which are used on every occasion without attaching them to
any particular fact, enlarge and obscure the thoughts they are
intended to convey; they render the mode of speech more succinct,
and the idea contained in it less clear. But with regard to
language, democratic nations prefer obscurity to labor. I know
not indeed whether this loose style has not some secret charm for
those who speak and write amongst these nations. As the men who
live there are frequently left to the efforts of their individual
powers of mind, they are almost always a prey to doubt; and as
their situation in life is forever changing, they are never held
fast to any of their opinions by the certain tenure of their
fortunes. Men living in democratic countries are, then, apt to
entertain unsettled ideas, and they require loose expressions to
convey them. As they never know whether the idea they express
to-day will be appropriate to the new position they may occupy
to-morrow, they naturally acquire a liking for abstract terms.
An abstract term is like a box with a false bottom: you may put
in it what ideas you please, and take them out again without
being observed.
Amongst all nations, generic and abstract terms form the
basis of language. I do not, therefore, affect to expel these
terms from democratic languages; I simply remark that men have an
especial tendency, in the ages of democracy, to multiply words of
this kind -to take them always by themselves in their most
abstract acceptation, and to use them on all occasions, even when
the nature of the discourse does not require them.