And it has put an end to another
danger. It seemed at one time not unlikely that the English language as
it is spoken overseas would set up a life of its own, and become
separated from the language of the old country. A development of this
kind would be natural enough. The Boers of South Africa speak Dutch, but
not the Dutch spoken in Holland. The French Canadians speak French, but
not the French of Moliere. Half a century ago, when America was
exploring and settling her own country, in wild and lone places, her
pioneers enriched the English speech with all kinds of new and vivid
phrases. The tendency was then for America to go her own way, and to
cultivate what is new in language at the expense of what is old. She
prided herself even on having a spelling of her own, and seemed almost
willing to break loose from tradition and to coin a new American
English.
This has not happened; and now, I think, it will not happen. For one
thing, the American colonists left us when already we had a great
literature. Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Spenser belong to America no less
than to us, and America has never forgotten them.
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