rooted in the soil since a day whereof the memory of man runneth not to
the contrary; and some are strangers of outlandish origin, coming to us
from all the shores of all the Seven Seas either to tarry awhile and
then to depart for ever, unwelcome sojourners only, or to settle down
at last and found a family soon asserting equality with the oldest
inhabitants of the vocabulary. Seafaring terms came to us from
Scandinavia and from the Low Countries. Words of warfare on land crossed
the channel, in exchange for words of warfare at sea which migrated from
England to France. Dead tongues, Greek and Latin, have been revived to
replenish our verbal population with the terms needed for the sciences;
and Italy has sent us a host of words by the fine arts.

The stream of immigrants from the French language has been for almost a
thousand years larger than that from any other tongue; and even to-day
it shows little sign of lessening. Of all the strangers within our gates
none are more warmly received than those which come to us from across
the Straits of Dover. None are more swiftly able to make themselves
at home in our dictionaries and to pass themselves off as English.
At least, this was the case until comparatively recently, when the
process of adoption and assimilation became a little slower and more
than a little less satisfactory. Of late French words, even those long
domiciled in our lexicons, have been treated almost as if they were
still aliens, as if they were here on sufferance, so to speak, as if
they had not become members of the commonwealth. They were allowed to
work, no doubt, and sometimes even to be overworked; but they laboured
as foreigners, perhaps even more eagerly employed by the snobbish
because they were foreigners and yet held in disrepute by the more
fastidious because they were not truly English. That is to say, French
words are still as hospitably greeted as ever before, but they are now
often ranked as guests only and not as members of the household.