This is a study of the relationship between language and identity in the nineteenth century, as “language” categorized “people within a” diverse “world… Linguistic differences, especially among English-speakers, seemed to validate the emerging national, racial, local, and regional identity categories…” While it is classist, racist and sexist to describe distinctions between people in this manner in most contexts, linguistic differences have been claimed as grounds where such distinctions are a good thing. There are armies of linguists and popular-culture writers who propagate for an authentic modern African American dialect, stressing that using this culturally-built set of slang terms, contractions, and other linguistic features helps to strengthen the identity of the members of this group. Correcting “broken” English is discouraged in much of modern linguistics, as Englishes are promoted as all equally valid. Even more frequently, popular culture suggests that insults and errors in speech are “cool” or demonstrate higher social standing of the speaker. The linguistic distinctions that have been standardized even in “broken” language in modern times by shared popular audio-visual consumptions, were much more diverse and difficult to code-switch into back in the nineteenth century, the subject of this particular book. “Focusing on six eccentric characters of the time—from the woman known as ‘Princess Caraboo’ to wordsmith Noah Webster—Cassedy shows how each put language at the center of their identities and lived out the possibilities of their era’s linguistic ideas…” How six individuals can summarize the wide field of linguistic distinctions across a century is pretty mysterious, but digging further…
One thing that stands out is the inclusion of unreadable hand-written but automated words in the middle of texts and in the table of contents, which seem to be there for artistic reasons, but only manage to obscure the words they are supposed to spell out (6). Some of the stranger elements in the book are curious, such as the transcription of a series of numbers and stresses over text to represent “Duncan Mackintosh’s phonetic printing system” from 1797 (7). There are several foreign language phrases, some of which do not appear to have been translated (38). The text is full of close research with specific quotations and other evidence of linguistic differences. In one example, the author describes the impact of the Napoleonic Wars on a “wave of political refugees”, who were instructed by a la Dufief, with a note: “His community—his people—were bilinguals in exile in the English-speaking world. He was always between nationalities; he found other people who were between them, too, and let them share his linguistic home. On some level, it might have been important to him not to assimilate into the American or British nations”. The author adds that Dufief kept speaking English with “a horrible French accent” (65). This seems pretty ethnically insensitive; failure to “assimilate” or to change his accent s seen as something that devalues Dufief’s contribution as an English teacher. Most speakers who switch languages after twelve cannot fully adopt an accent even with rigorous modern linguistic training, so it would have been much stranger if Dufief managed to drop his French accent. And to his ears, the Americans were the ones speaking with a horrid accent as they failed to speak proper British English… Discussing almost anything related to linguistics is bound to step into contested waters. Later in the book, the author departs from the concerns of the past to ponder about texting, “like” and other modern linguistic annoyances. She jumps between problems with prescriptive models old and new before concluding: “In historical retrospect, I’m interested in linguistic passions of all kinds, whether or not they seem valid to me… The less interested I become in policing the linguistic boundaries of my own world, the more I like to lose myself in the strangeness, the wonder, and the sheer [??? word in wiggly handwriting] of the past’s linguistic imagination” (222-4). I share Tim Cassedy’s conclusion: it is interesting to argue about linguistics, and I hope all sides could keep arguing without taking offense.
This is a non-linear book that jumps around through history and languages, but given the fluid nature of language this is a fitting style for this complex subject. Therefore, I recommend this book as a curiously honest take on the battles we have been fighting over language. It is probably going to be particularly appreciated by linguists and literature scholars, whereas the very people who it might be defending, or those who retain non-standard linguistic distinctions might either find offense or might miss some of the more intricate insider-jokes and digressive philosophizing Cassedy allows.