ABSTRACT
No single human individual ever lived completely isolated from his fellow beings; no nation was ever entirely cut off from other nations; and no contact between individuals and nations ever took place without leaving traces in their coming lives. Language is inconceivable without such contact, and nothing is more contagious than modes of speech. From the manner in which a man talks, one can always tell what sort of people he has had most intercourse with and what sort of influences, intellectual and moral, he has been chiefly subject to in the whole of his life. This is true of nations too; a complete survey of the English language would, therefore, show to the initiated the whole of the life of the English nation from the oldest times till the present day.
