" Yep ! 5!
(Mr. St. John Ervin is writing a series of articles for the SPEcreatit, The next will deal with " The Topography of Crime.")
WHEN people begin to argue about the English Ian. guage, how it should be pronounced and how i should be spelt, sooner or later one of them will scornfully discourse on Americanisms, most of whiCh turn out to be old Englishisms. The word " some " is used, exactly in the sense in which a modern.American uses it, by Shake. peare in King Henry IV. (Part II., Act ii., Scene 2 when Prince Hal refers to Doll Tearsheet as " some road, When a play of mine, called John Ferguson, was per formed in Nevi York, an English painter rebtiked director of 'the theatre in which it was performed f allowing the players to use the Americanism " Quit " ie an Ulster play. " But," the manager protested, "it's in the script ! " And so it very rightly was. The word " quit," meaning stop or cease, is a common expression in the North of Ireland. A mother; bidding a child not to be naughty, will say, " Quit it ! " instead of " Stop it !" or " Give over ! " Thousands of Ulster Presbyterians emigrated to the United States between the years 1728 and 1770, driven there by persecution, and very bitter and implacable enemies of England they and their imme diate descendants became. I doubt, indeed, whether the American Revolution would have had the success it had if the Ulstermen had not been in it. They took their Ulster turns of speech with them, most of which were purely Elizabethan, and firmly planted them in the American language. All the immigrants into the United States, of course, have taken their speech with them, but the Ulstermen got a good start over most of the others, which is why the American voice sounds so familiar, to Northern Irish ears. There are times, while I listen' to an American, when I have difficulty in believing that am not listening to.anU1sterrnan. But the influence over the American language gained by people of English and Irish birth is steadily being lost; despite the efforts of academic persons to maintain it. The great multitudes of diverse immigrants which began to move into America after the end of the Civil War were bound to affect the language. In the ten years ending June 80th, 1914, Europeans of every sort emigrated to America at the rate of more than a million each year Seventy years ago there were about 700 People in Chicago: now there are nearly three millions, and the foreigners, among the wage-earners greatly outnumber the native born Americans. Chicago contains in great masses, Germans, Poles, Russians, Irish, Negroes, Bohemians, Swedes, Italians, Norwegians, Austrians, Hungarians; Lithuanians, English, Canadians, Danes, Scots and Dutch. The largest group among the wage-earners in Chicago, apart from the native-born white Americans,' the German, and the smallest is the Dutch. There an 403,783 German wage-earners in Chicago, and 23,01 Dutch. When the reader realizes that all of these group ofjoreignets, with the exception of theCanadians and thl Negroes, in the Middle-West city. were born in Europe) and that they often are illiterate and unable to spC English, and that the majority of them, when they speak English at all, speak it indifferently, he will realize why; the English language is steadily being debased int Chicago. What is true of Chicago is largely true of the rest of, America. There Were about 3,000 Jews in the whole ‘A the United States in 1818: a century later there were °'1! and a half millions of Jews in New York City alone. ts. the ten years immediately preceding the outbreak of the iVar in 1914, •2,847,636 persons emigrated from Austria- llungary to the United States. So did 2,196,884 Italians d 1,991,284 Russians. A nation cannot assimilate large masses of foreigners received in such rapidity, nor an its language endure against their debasement. The tact we have to recognize is that the English language, as ire know it, is not the English language as millions of Americans know it, and we have also to recognize the nger in which our language now stands because of the creasing intercourse between England and the United States, partly through interchange of people on business or on pleasure, partly through the influence of the "movies," and partly through the growth in popularity of American plays, novels and magazines.
A woman professor at an American University reported tely that there are thirty-seven different ways of pro- ouncing the word " Yes " in her neighbourhood. They are as follows :— Yip Yahss
Yep Yazz Yap Yahzz Yop Ye-us Yup Yeh Yahp Ye-ha Yurp Yessir Yia Yea bo Yah Chassm (yea ma'am) Yo Shassm do.
Yaw 'Es (baby talk) Yezz Hya
Chess Yar (expressing disbelief) Chess Yair do. Chahas Eye-yah Chiles Chow (the first element of the diphthong like the a of hat) Yuss Yays Yeth Yass Yum
The professor asserts that she received other variants of t' yes," but they were unworthy of a philologist's atten- tion.
These variations of a single English word are inevitable in a country with a polyglot population, and it is clear that the English language in Ameillei is in grave danger of disruption. It is " Americanisms " of this sort which )re have cause to dread and deplore, for they are the result of illiteracy or awkwardness. When an American immigrant-says " Yah " or " Yep'" he is probably trying to say " yes," just as a baby when it mispronounces a word is trying to pronounce it correctly. The baby, indeed, is confused when its Dind parent abandons the correct pro- nunciation and gives an imitation of the child's mispro- nunciation : it is given a new sound to learn. Americans, instead of insisting-on the proper pronunciation of " yes," behaved as does a doting mother, and said " yep " or "yah " with the result that remarkably few Americans now say " yes " at all. This vile pronunciation can some- times be heard on English tongues. On the first night of a clever and popular comedy now being performed in London, I heard.a distinguished English actor say " Yep " in the course of the performance. No one 'booed ! I do not believe that any English actor could have mispro- nounced " yes " in that vile way before the War and hive " got away with it." The fact that this player was allowed to say " yep " unchecked by the audience denotes that the danger I fear is present, and if we do not look Out we Shall. presently find our people " yepping " everywhere.
Is it not time that we braced ourselves ? The after- War slackness was, no doubt, inevitable and had to be endured, but eight years have gone by since 1918, and we Ought now to be stirring ourselves again. Our language is a beautiful one. We shall cut a poor figure in the history of our country if we allow it to be debased.
ST. JOHN ERVINE.
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