Of ill-treated Spanish words, perhaps none has suffered more grievously than piragua, a word probably of Indian origin in the first place, but introduced into the world of letters in this form, and soon adopted by the French also as pirogue, which is most familiar to American ears. Meaning, originally, a canoe formed of a single large tree, or sometimes two such trunks lashed together, it is in the United States used promiscuously for any small boat or canoe, and even for a larger vessel carrying two masts and a leeboard, such as were formerly used as ferryboats in the neighborhood of New York. But the word was soon Americanized in a variety of ways, and, except in print, its true form is hardly ever preserved. It appears in the West as periauger, a form under which it is used by W. Irving (Washington, II., p. 272), as periauga in Virginia, and thus quoted from the Western papers (p. 13), and even as pettiauger in the Far West. A mere grammatical perversion, involving, however, no less violence, is the use of the Spanish imperative, Vamos, as an English verb, which has of late become so universal that it is actually often written: to vamose. The interjection, corresponding very nearly to our: Well! became familiar to the American troops during the Mexican War in 1847, and being uncommonly popular among them, it soon spread as a cant term all over the Union. Now it is a verb: "Before the speaker's voice could be heard every democratic member had vamosed, and since that day no quorum has ever been present," was said of the Indiana Legislature. (February 18, 1870.) Mr. Bartlett quotes from a book, "Southern Sketches," the phrase vamosed the ranch, and calls this process of appropriating words: "breaking Priscian's head with a vengeance." (Dict., p. 496.) Since J. R. Lowell, however, has used to vamose, the word must probably be considered naturalized. In a recent poem by John Hay occur the following lines: "The nigger has got to mosey (Banty Tim.) This mysterious word mosey is, probably correctly, said to be nothing more than a mere variety of the Americanized verb vamose, with the final vowel sounded, and the first syllable lost. It certainly has the same meaning, of leaving suddenly, and generally involuntarily. "My friend, let me tell you, if you do not mosey this instant, and clear out for good, you'll have to pay pretty dear." (Louisville Journal, October 9, 1857.) In this sense it has crossed the ocean, and reappears in English slang, especially as a summons: "Now, Mosey!" Its derivation from a mythical Moses, warmly as it is supported by English writers, has no foundation in fact, and is "only a new instance of the tendency to mythologize, which is as strong as ever among the uneducated." (Atlantic Monthly, August, 1860.) The Celtic proves its usual readiness to supply an ancestor to the quaint word, and proves its claims by the habit of Cornish miners to say, Moas, for Go! The verb is, of course, an entirely different word from that which enters into the composition of Moseysugar, molasses-candy with the meat of nuts mixed up with it. The latter comes from Mosaic, which the kind of inlaid work produced by the two colors, white and brown, resembles in some manner. Few would recognize the proud old Spanish word cavar, which denoted the haughty, impatient pawing of a spirited horse, in the half-ludicrous term: to cavort. It is true, its derivation is sometimes sought in the verb: to curvet, from the French courbetter, but the fact that the term is very frequently not only pronounced but also written cavault, seems to speak in favor of its Spanish origin. It is now used, especially in the South, for any very extravagant manner of speaking or acting, with an intention of ridiculing the action. Thus Judge Longstreet makes one of his heroes of "Georgia Scenes" say: "In they came, boys and girls, old and young, making a prodigious noise, and prancing and cavorting at a tremendous rate." A recent traveller in South Carolina describes a court-scene thus: "In the court, a judge in a black silk gown, and a jury of nine whites and three blacks, were trying a black, evil-looking, one-eyed negro, for disturbing a religious meeting. The witnesses were all negroes, and the gist of their testimony was that Tony, the accused, came to the meetinghouse, and—jes kep cavortin' round." (New York Tribune, May 7, 1871.) Spanish terms may appropriately come to an end with the word Zombi, a phantom or a ghost, not unfrequently heard in the Southern States in nurseries and among the servants. The word is a Creole corruption of the Spanish sombra, which at times has the same meaning. THE GERMAN. "I schpeaksch English.”—Hans Breitmann. EVEN that more remarkable than creditable propensity of the German, to assert his cosmopolitan character by abandoning his nationality, and by repudiating, after a few years' residence abroad, all attachment to his own language, his national views, and private convictions, has not prevented statisticians from finding more than five millions of Germans in the United States. They are, moreover, not limited, like the Dutch and the French, to certain circumscribed localities; they are not scattered and lost in the great Anglo-Saxon family, like the Irish and the Welsh. Far from it; they constitute a large proportion of the population of great cities, and own vast tracts of land in all the agricultural States; they have their temples to worship Gambrinus in Boston and in New Orleans, in Norfolk and in San Francisco. Their press is powerful and high-toned, their potent voice is heard in State Legislatures and in the national Senate. Their influence is felt in every State, and their vote is decisive in great crises. And yet they have not enriched our language by a dozen important words! The very fact of their excessive readiness to adapt themselves to all the exigencies of their new home, their unwillingness to use their own idiom as soon as they have acquired sufficient English to converse in it freely, and their prompt admission of the superiority of American terms as well as institutions, have well-nigh neutralized the influence they might nave exercised by their numbers, their intelligence, and their superior education. They have, no doubt, powerfully affected the national mind in all that pertains to the realm of thought American churches, American letters, and even American manners bear more or less the impress of German teachings; but the marks are not visible, because the action has been too subtle and slow, too secret and silent, to leave its traces on the surface. This is all the more true of our speech, as their own beautiful and highly improved idiom, so near akin to our tongue, has sadly suffered by the contact with English. Scholars coming over from Germany remark with deep regret how rapidly their beloved language is yielding to the might of American nationality. They point with ineffable pain to the jargon spoken, written, and even printed in Pennsylvania-a hopeless departure from the old standard, and shocking in its barbarous admixture of English terms, which it mutilates as savagely as its own. The lines: "My Mary cot one leetle sheeps, Hees flees so vite mit schnow, Dat tam leetle sheeps will go," show the havoc the uneducated German, whose ear cannot distinguish between b and p, or d and t, plays with English; and the following will, in like manner, illustrate the injury done to the mother-tongue: แ Mudder, may I a schwimming went? I bet twice more als foofty cent, Dat you get drowned in de votter." (Acorn and Germ, Millwood, Pennsylvania, Sept. 14, 1870.) Hans Breitmann's Ballads (by Charles G. Leland), give an example of the process which, artificial in the poems, goes on naturally in the regions where uneducated Germans and the descendants of such come in contact with the superior English which is spoken throughout the United States. On the other hand, in cities and a few specially favored districts, where a higher class of Germans are brought in contact with each other, they still speak their own language, publish their own newspapers; almanacs, and light literature, and have their own schools and i churches, where instruction is given and services are held in ! German. The result is, that with the exception of one or two German words of greater importance, our speech has been enriched only by a few terms, relating either to slang or to-eating. The word. standpoint, a literal version of the German Standpunkt, is generally considered as having originated in America; its use, however, has met with such prompt and general success in the pages of English writers, that America would probably find it difficult to prove the paternity. A Turner, however, has become literally what Americans call an "institution." The word represents our "Gymnast," but being applied to members of clubs and societies who make gymnastics a subject of pleasure as well as of health, it is now universally admitted into our speech. Turnerfeste, as their annual festivals are designated, excite the utmost interest, and their performances the greatest admiration in the large cities, while their clubs, or Turn Vereine, as they begin to be called even by many who are ignorant of German, exercise a most salutary influence on the people by inducing them to bestow that attention upon physical exercise, the want of which has so seriously affected the health of Americans. It is somewhat strange that the word designating the very opposite to the Turner's character, the Loafer, should, in like manner, come from the German. He is the vagabond or idle lounger, who so oddly contradicts the world's impression of American energy and irrepressible activity; who meets you at every corner and in every grogshop of a city; disfigures every village as he sits on empty boxes and windowsills, lazily whittling a stick, and spitting his villanous tobacco; who supports bar-rooms and ruins his prospects, disgraces his family, and destroys his own life. He is far worse than the lazzarone of Naples in his forced inactivity under a wretched government, and in a climate where life is possible without labor; worse than the Mexican lepero, cursed with an incurable malady, and helpless in all his efforts. In vain has he been painted in quaint humor by many a clever artist, in vain has Walt Whitman declared that the forte of his nation is "confessedly loafing and writing poems." Although R. W. Emerson tells us gravely that the poet's "Leaves of Grass" are the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed," we believe better things of his nation. The term, common as it is, has, like many other common words, given the learned much trouble. The Philadelphia Vademecum |