A history of the English Language

part was unexpectedly great. It was soon reissued under the title 
The
American 
SpellingBook
and in this form went through edition after edition. It is estimated that in a 
hundred years, more than 80 million copies of the book were sold. From a profit of less 
than a cent a copy Webster derived most of his income throughout his life. The influence 
of the little book was enormous and will be discussed below. Here it is sufficient to note 
that it had the effect of turning its author’s attention to questions of language and enabled 
him to devote himself to a number of projects of a linguistic kind. In 1789 he published a 
volume of
 Dissertations on the English Language, with Notes Historical and Critical
. In 
1806 he brought out a small 
Dictionary,
the prelude to his greatest work. This was 
An 
American Dictionary ofthe English Language,
published in 1828 in two quarto volumes. 
In all of these works and in numerous smaller writings he was animated by a persistent 
purpose: to show that the English language in this country was a distinctly American 
thing, developing along its own lines, and deserving to be considered from an 
independent, American point of view. His selfassurance had its faults as well as its 
virtues. It led him to ignore discoveries from Europe that were establishing the principles 
of comparative linguistics, and to spend years writing etymologies that were inadequate 
even for his time.
17
The etymologies could be replaced eventually by a German scholar, 
C.A.F. Mahn, but the sustaining zeal that carried him to the completion of his work drew 
on resources of personality more complex and rarer than current knowledge of the 
discipline. 
In the preface to the first part of the 
Grammatical Institute
Webster says: “The author 
wishes to promote the honour and prosperity of the confederated republics of America; 
and cheerfully throws his mite into the common treasure of patriotic exertions. This
17 
See Allen W.Read, “The Spread of German Linguistic Learning in New England during the 
Lifetime of Noah Webster,” 
American Speech,
41 (1966), 163–81, and Joseph H.Friend, 
The 
Development of American Lexicography, 1798–1864
(The Hague, 1967), pp. 75–79. 
A history of the english language 346

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country must in some future time, be as distinguished by the superiority of her literary 
improvements, as she is already by the liberality of her civil and ecclesiastical 
constitutions. Europe is grown old in folly, corruption and tyranny…. For America in her 
infancy to adopt the present maxims of the old world, would be to stamp the wrinkles of 
decrepid age upon the bloom of youth and to plant the seeds of decay in a vigorous 
constitution.” Six years later, in his 
Dissertations on the English Language,
he went 
much further. “As an independent nation,” he says, “our honor requires us to have a 
system of our own, in language as well as government. Great Britain, whose children we 
are, should no longer be 
our
standard; for the taste of her writers is already corrupted, and 
her language on the decline. But if it were not so, she is at too great a distance to be our 
model, and to instruct us in the principles of our own tongue.” But independence of 
England was not the only factor that colored people’s thinking in the new nation. A 
capital problem in 1789 was that of welding the thirteen colonies into a unified nation, 
and this is also reflected in Webster’s ideas. In urging certain reforms of spelling in the 
United States he argues that one of the advantages would be that it would make a 
difference between the English orthography and the American, and “that such an event is 
an object of vast political consequence.” A “national language,” he says, “is a band of 
national union. Every engine should be employed to render the people of this country 
national;
to call their attachments home to their own country; and to inspire them with 
the pride of national character.” Culturally they are still too dependent upon England. 
“However they may boast of Independence, and the freedom of their government, yet 
their 
opinions
are not sufficiently independent; an astonishing respect for the arts and 
literature of their parent country, and a blind imitation of its manners, are still prevalent 
among the Americans.” It is an idea that he often returns to. In his 
Letter to Pickering
(1817) he says, “There is nothing which, in my opinion, so debases the genius and 
character of my countrymen, as the implicit confidence they place in English authors, and 
their unhesitating submission to their 
opinions,
their 
derision,
and their 
frowns
. But I trust 
the time will come, when the English will be convinced that the intellectual faculties of 
their descendants have not degenerated in America; and that we can contend with them in 
letters,
with as much success, as upon the 
ocean
.” This was written after the War of 1812. 
So far as the language is concerned, he has no doubt of its ultimate differentiation. He is 
sure that “numerous local causes, such as a new country, new associations of people, new 
combinations of ideas in arts and science, and some intercourse with tribes wholly 
unknown in Europe, will introduce new words into the American tongue. These causes 
will produce, in a course of time, a language in North America, as different from the 
future language of England, as the Modern Dutch, Danish and Swedish are from the 
German, or from one another.” 
The culmination of his efforts to promote the idea of an American language was the 
publication of his 
American Dictionary
in 1828. Residence for a year in England had 
somewhat tempered his opinion, but it was still fundamentally the same. In the preface to 
that work he gave final expression to his conviction: “It is not only important, but, in a 
degree necessary, that the people of this country, should have an 
American Dictionary
of 
the English Language; for, although the body of the language is the same as in England, 
and it is desirable to perpetuate that sameness, yet some differences must exist. Language 
is the expression of ideas; and if the people of our country cannot preserve an identity of 
ideas, they cannot retain an identity of language. Now an identity of ideas depends 
The english language in america 347

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materially upon a sameness of things or objects with which the people of the two coun-
tries are conversant. But in no two portions of the earth, remote from each other, can such 
identity be found. Even physical objects must be different. But the principal differences 
between the people of this country and of all others, arise from different forms of 
government, different laws, institutions and customs… the institutions in this country 
which are new and peculiar, give rise to new terms, unknown to the people of 
England…No person in this country will be satisfied with the English definitions of the 
words 
congress, senate
and 
assembly, court,
&c. for although these are words used in 
England, yet they are applied in this country to express ideas which they do not express 
in that country.” It is not possible to dismiss this statement as an advertisement calculated 
to promote the sale of his book in competition with the English dictionaries of Johnson 
and others. He had held such a view long before the idea of a dictionary had taken shape 
in his mind. Webster was a patriot who carried his sentiment from questions of political 
and social organization over into matters of language. By stressing American usage and 
American pronunciation, by adopting a number of distinctive spellings, and especially by 
introducing quotations from American authors alongside those from English literature, he 
contrived in large measure to justify the title of his work. If, after a century and a half, 
some are inclined to doubt the existence of anything so distinctive as an American 
language, his efforts, nevertheless, have left a permanent mark on the language of this 
country.