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The Density of Latinate Words in the Speeches of Jane Austen's Characters1
1University of Colorado at Denver USA
2Dakota State University USA
Mary DeForest, Department of Modern Languages, Campus Box 178, PO Box 173364, Denver, CO 80217-3364, USA. E-mail: crypto{at}ecentral.com
English has two main sources for words: German and Latin. Distinct from each other, they have polarized our language into high diction and low (‘diglossia’). Latinate words denote the intellectual world; Germanic words, the physical. Latinate words are indicators of status and education. Austen painted and delineated her characters by giving their speeches different densities of Latinate words. Higher densities of Latinate words sometimes indicate intelligence and moral seriousness, at other times, they expose a character's formality or hypocrisy. Lower densities indicate lesser intelligence or, in the case of sailors, humble birth. The characters whose densities are very close to the narrator are Austen's four great heroines, Elinor Dashwood, Elizabeth Bennet, Emma Woodhouse, and Anne Elliot.
1 We are grateful to Professor John O'Neill of Hamilton College, Professor John Greppin of Cleveland State University, Joy King of the University of Colorado, Bob Johnson, and Danelle Kerber, for their many suggestions in editing this paper. John O'Neill suggested two areas that proved fruitful: the Latinate densities of Caroline Bingley's two letters and of Elizabeth Bennet's speech after she read of Lydia's