5828. NEOLOGY, American.—
I am no
friend to what is called Purism, but a zealous
one to the Neology which has introduced
these two words without the authority of any
dictionary. I consider the one as destroying
the nerve and beauty of language, while the
other improves both, and adds to its copiousness.
I have been not a little disappointed, and
made suspicious of my own judgment, on seeing
the Edinburgh Reviewers, the ablest critics
of the age, set their faces against the introduction
of new words into the English language;
they are particularly apprehensive that the
writers of the United States will adulterate it.
Certainly so great growing a population, spread
over such an extent of country, with such a
variety of climates, of productions, of arts, must
enlarge their language, to make it answer its
purpose of expressing all ideas, the new as
well as the old. The new circumstances under
which we are placed, call for new words, new
phrases, and for the transfer of old words to
new objects. An American dialect will, therefore,
be formed; so will a West-Indian and
Asiatic, as a Scotch and an Irish are already
formed. But whether will these adulterate, or
enrich the English language? Has the beautiful
poetry of Burns, or his Scottish dialect,
disfigured it? Did the Athenians consider the
Doric, the Ionian, the Aeolic, and other dialects,
as disfiguring or as beautifying their language?
Did they fastidiously disavow Herodotus, Pindar,
Theocritus, Sappho, Alcæus, as Grecian
writers? On the contrary, they were sensible
that the variety of dialects, still infinitely varied
by poetical license, constituted the riches of
their language, and made the Grecian Homer
the first of poets, as he must ever remain, until
a language equally ductile and copious shall
again be spoken.—
To John Waldo. Washington ed. vi, 184.
(M.
1813)
