Multilingual Subjects
MULTILINGUAL SUBJECTS
On Standard English, Its Speakers, and Others in the Long Eighteenth Century
Daniel DeWispelare
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS
PHILADELPHIA
Copyright © 2017 University of Pennsylvania Press
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University of Pennsylvania Press
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Printed in the United States of America
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: DeWispelare, Daniel, author.
Title: Multilingual subjects : on standard English, its speakers, and others in the long eighteenth century / Daniel DeWispelare.
Description: 1st edition. | Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016050486 | ISBN 978–0-8122–4909–5 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: English language—Political aspects—English-speaking countries—History—18th century. | English language—Political aspects—Great Britain—History—18th century. | Multilingualism—English-speaking countries—History—18th century. | English language—Social aspects—English-speaking countries—History—18th century. | Sociolinguistics—English-speaking countries—History—18th century. | English language—English-speaking countries—Standardization—History—18th century. | English language—English-speaking countries—Variation—History—18th century. | Language policy—English-speaking countries—History—18th century. | Language and languages—Philosophy—History—18th century. | Translating and interpreting—English-speaking countries—History—18th century.
Classification: LCC P119.3 .D487 2017 | DDC 306.442/21—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016050486
To my father
Daniel DeWispelare
March 29, 1949–September 25, 2010
If I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall
be unto him that speaketh a barbarian; and he
that speaketh shall be a barbarian to me.
—1 Corinthians 14:11, King James Version
Opacities must be preserved; an appetite
for opportune obscurity in translation must
be created; and falsely convenient vehicular
sabirs must be relentlessly refuted.
—Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation
CONTENTS
Introduction. Multiplicity and Relation: Toward an Anglophone Eighteenth Century
MULTILINGUAL LIVES: Peros, Jack, Neptune, and Cupid
Chapter 1. The Multilingualism of the Other: Politics, Counterpolitics, Anglophony, and Beyond
MULTILINGUAL LIVES: Reverend Lyons
Chapter 2. De Copia: Language, Politics, and Aesthetics
MULTILINGUAL LIVES: Dorothy Pentreath and William Bodener
Chapter 3. De Libertate: Anglophony and the Idea of “Free” Translation
MULTILINGUAL LIVES: Joseph Emin
Chapter 4. Literacy Fictions: Making Linguistic Difference Legible
MULTILINGUAL LIVES: Antera Duke
Chapter 5. The “Alien Wealth” of “Lucky Contaminations”: Freedom, Labor, and Translation
Conclusion. Anglophone Futures: Globalization and Divination, Language and the Humanities
Appendix A. Selected “Dialect” Prose
Appendix B. Selected “Dialect” Poetry
INTRODUCTION
Multiplicity and Relation
Toward an Anglophone Eighteenth Century
Johnson, Scott, and the Highlanders
By subsequent opportunities of observation, I found that my host’s diction had nothing peculiar. Those Highlanders that can speak English, commonly speak it well, with few of the words, and little of the tone by which a Scotchman is distinguished. Their language seems to have been learned in the army or the navy, or by some communication with those who could give them good examples of accent and pronunciation. By their Lowland neighbours they would not willingly be taught; for they have long considered them as a mean and degenerate race. These prejudices are wearing fast away, but so much of them still remains, that when I asked a very learned minister in the islands, which they considered as their most savage clans: “Those, said he, that live next the Lowlands.”1
This passage from Samuel Johnson’s Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775) registers