Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, by Various 1 Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, by Various The Project Gutenberg EBook of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 6, by Various This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 6 "English Language" to "Epsom Salts" Author: Various Release Date: February 17, 2011 [EBook #35306] Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA *** Produced by Marius Masi, Don Kretz and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net Transcriber's notes: (1) Numbers following letters (without space) like C2 were originally printed in subscript. Letter subscripts are preceded by an underscore, like Cn. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, by Various 2 (2) Characters following a carat (^) were printed in superscript. (3) Side-notes were relocated to function as titles of their respective paragraphs. (4) Macrons and breves above letters and dots below letters were not inserted. (5) Small and capital EZH letters are subtituted with [gh] and [Gh] respectively. Thorn is subtituted with th or Th, and eth is subtituted with dh. (6) [root] stands for the root symbol; [alpha], [beta], etc. for greek letters. (7) The following typographical errors have been corrected: ARTICLE ENGLISH LANGUAGE: "The writers of each district wrote in the dialect familiar to them; and between extreme forms the difference was so great as to amount to unintelligibility ..." 'familiar' amended from 'familar'. ARTICLE ENGLISH LITERATURE: "Even more portentous in its superhuman dignity was the style of Edward Gibbon, who combined with the unspiritual optimism of Hume and Robertson a far more concentrated devotion to his subject ..." 'combined' amended from 'conbined'. ARTICLE ENTERITIS: "The chief symptom is diarrhoea. The term "enteric fever" has recently come into use instead of "typhoid" for the latter disease; but see Typhoid Fever." 'symptom' amended from 'sympton'. ARTICLE ENTRE MINHO E DOURO: "The methods and implements of the farmers are, however, most primitive, and at the beginning of the 20th century it was not unusual to see a mule, or even a woman, harnessed with the team of oxen to an old-fashioned wooden plough." 'it' amended from 'is'. ARTICLE ENTRE RIOS: "... a province of the eastern Argentine Republic, forming the southern part of a region sometimes described as the Argentine Mesopotamia ..." 'southern' amended from 'sourthern'. ARTICLE EPHRAIM: "... and Ephraim's proud and ambitious character is indicated in its demands as narrated in Josh. xvii. 14; Judg. viii. 1-3, xii. 1-6. throughout, Ephraim played a distinctive and prominent part; it probably excelled Manasseh in numerical strength ..." 'throughout' amended from 'thoughout'. ARTICLE EPIC POETRY: "... and Teofilo Folengo (1491-1544), ridiculed the whole school in an Orlandino of 1526." 'Folengo' amended from 'Folango'. ARTICLE EPIDAURUS: "It was abandoned during the middle ages; its inhabitants took possession of the promontory of Minoa ..." 'possession' amended from 'posession'. ARTICLE EPILOGUE: "... and then explained to the audience what an extremely interesting play it had been. In the second case, when the author was less confident ..." 'extremely' amended from 'exremely'. ARTICLE EPITHELIAL, ENDOTHELIAL: "It will be sufficient here to give the more general characters possessed by these cells." 'sufficient' amended from 'sufficent'. ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE AND GENERAL INFORMATION ELEVENTH EDITION Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, by Various 3 VOLUME IX, SLICE VI English Language to Epsom Salts ARTICLES IN THIS SLICE: ENGLISH LANGUAGE EPHEBI ENGLISH LAW EPHEMERIS ENGLISH LITERATURE EPHESIANS, EPISTLE TO THE ENGLISHRY EPHESUS ENGRAVING EPHESUS, COUNCIL OF ENGROSSING EPHOD ENGYON EPHOR ENID EPHORUS ENIGMA EPHRAEM SYRUS ENKHUIZEN EPHRAIM ENNEKING, JOHN JOSEPH EPHTHALITES ENNIS EPI ENNISCORTHY EPICENE ENNISKILLEN, WILLIAM COLE EPICHARMUS ENNISKILLEN EPIC POETRY ENNIUS, QUINTUS EPICTETUS ENNODIUS, MAGNUS FELIX EPICURUS ENNS EPICYCLE ENOCH EPICYCLOID ENOCH, BOOK OF EPIDAURUS ENOMOTO, BUYO EPIDIORITE ENOS EPIDOSITE ENRIQUEZ GOMEZ, ANTONIO EPIDOTE ENSCHEDE EPIGONI ENSENADA, CENON DE SOMODEVILLA EPIGONION ENSIGN EPIGRAM ENSILAGE EPIGRAPHY ENSTATITE EPILEPSY ENTABLATURE EPILOGUE ENTADA EPIMENIDES ENTAIL EPINAL ENTASIS EPINAOS ENTERITIS EPINAY, LOUISE D'ESCLAVELLES D' ENTHUSIASM EPIPHANIUS, SAINT ENTHYMEME EPIPHANY, FEAST OF ENTOMOLOGY EPIRUS ENTOMOSTRACA EPISCOPACY ENTRAGUES, CATHERINE DE BALZAC D' EPISCOPIUS, SIMON ENTRECASTEAUX, BRUNI D' EPISODE ENTRE MINHO E DOURO EPISTAXIS ENTREPOT EPISTEMOLOGY ENTRE RIOS EPISTLE ENVOY EPISTYLE ENZIO EPISTYLIS ENZYME EPITAPH EOCENE EPITHALAMIUM EON DE BEAUMONT EPITHELIAL and GLANDULAR TISSUES EOTVOS, JOZSEF EPITOME EPAMINONDAS EPOCH EPARCH EPODE EPAULETTE EPONA EPEE, CHARLES-MICHEL EPONYMOUS EPEE-DE-COMBAT EPPING EPERJES EPPS EPERNAY EPREMESNIL, JEAN JACQUES DUVAL D' EPERNON EPSOM EPHEBEUM EPSOM SALTS ENGLISH LANGUAGE. In its historical sense, the name English is now conveniently used to comprehend the language of the English people from their settlement in Britain to the present day, the various stages through which it has passed being distinguished as Old, Middle, and New or Modern English. In works yet recent, and even in some still current, the term is confined to the third, or at most extended to the second and third of these stages, since the language assumed in the main the vocabulary and grammatical forms which it now presents, the oldest or inflected stage being treated as a separate language, under the title of Anglo-Saxon, while the transition period which connects the two has been called Semi-Saxon. This view had the justification that, looked upon by themselves, either as vehicles of thought or as objects of study and analysis, Old English or Anglo-Saxon and Modern English are, for all practical ends, distinct languages,--as much so, for example, as Latin and Spanish. No amount of familiarity with Modern English, including its local dialects, would enable the student to read Anglo-Saxon, three-fourths of the vocabulary of which have perished and been reconstructed within 900 years;[1] nor would a knowledge even of these lost words give him the power, since the grammatical system, alike in accidence and syntax, would be entirely strange to him. Indeed, it is probable that a modern Englishman would acquire the power of reading and writing French in less time than it would cost him to attain to the same proficiency in Old English; so that if the test of distinct languages be their degree of practical difference from each other, it cannot be denied that "Anglo-Saxon" is a distinct language from Modern English. But when we view the subject historically, recognizing the fact that living speech is subject to continuous change in certain definite directions, determined by the constitution and circumstances of mankind, as an evolution or development of which we can trace the steps, and that, owing to the abundance of written materials, this evolution appears so gradual in English that we can nowhere draw distinct lines separating its successive stages, we recognize these stages as merely temporary phases of an individual whole, and speak of the English language as used alike by Cynewulf, by Chaucer, by Shakespeare and by Tennyson.[2] It must not be forgotten, however, that in this wide sense the English language includes, not only the literary or courtly forms of speech used at successive periods, but also the popular and, it may be, altogether unwritten dialects that exist by their side. Only on this basis, indeed, can we speak of Old, Middle and Modern English as the same language, since in actual fact the precise dialect which is now the cultivated language, or "Standard English," is not the descendant of that dialect which was the cultivated language or Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, by Various 4 "Englisc" of Alfred, but of a sister dialect then sunk in comparative obscurity,--even as the direct descendant of Alfred's Englisc is now to be found in the non-literary rustic speech of Wiltshire and Somersetshire. Causes which, linguistically considered, are external and accidental, have shifted the political and intellectual centre of England, and along with it transferred literary and official patronage from one form of English to another; if the centre of influence had happened to be fixed at York or on the banks of the Forth, both would probably have been neglected for a third. The English language, thus defined, is not "native" to Britain, that is, it was not found there at the dawn of history, but was introduced by foreign immigrants at a date many centuries later. At the Roman Conquest of the island the languages spoken by the natives belonged all (so far as is known) to the Celtic branch of the Indo-European or Indo-Germanic family, modern forms of which still survive in Wales, Ireland, the Scottish Highlands, Isle of Man and Brittany, while one has at no distant date become extinct in Cornwall (see CELT: Language). Brythonic dialects, allied to Welsh and Cornish, were apparently spoken over the greater part of Britain, as far north as the firths of Forth and Clyde; beyond these estuaries