NOTE: For some reason the formatting for this post doesn't transfer from Word to the blog, which is why my chart looks all weird and will probably be hard to read. I apologize for this and will try to fix it in the future.
My original intent in this book review was to find new words created specifically in Jane Eyre however, upon looking through the Oxford English Dictionary online I found that there are very few and have little interest for us as studiers of the history of the English language. So, I decided to study Brontë as an author and her style and word choices. This became more interesting as I delved into her personal and family history as well.
In the following chart I will outline the words coined by Brontë found in her three most popular books. Most of these words were rarely used again if at all and rarely were the definitions of these words given over to other words as I initially thought the case might be. Also, several of the words found on the Oxford English Dictionary online were French formations that she uses which have not been formally borrowed into English. These I did not include in my list or analysis. The words or information that I have bolded are the ones that I have found most interesting and which had some significant influence even though most of them vanished during the early 20th century.
Word Meaning Other Uses (yrs)
Jane Eyre 1847
Dentelle Lace 1852
Fillette Young girl 1888, 1928
Gytrash An apparition, spectre, ghost, generally 1891
taking the form of an animal
Undersound No known meaning 1860?
Unimpressionable Not easily influenced? 1850, 1884
Shirley 1849
Afoam in a state of foam 1864
Choucroute a kind of pickled cabbage 1921, 1961
relatable to sauerkraut
General (as a verb) To act as a general to 1889
Grande tenue full dress, esp. full military costume 1865, 1880, 1886, 1952
Reflet color due to reflection, luster 1862, 1876, 1888, 1923, 1931
Rerobe to dress in a fresh robe, to clothe again 1934
Unlonged for not longed for only usage
Untinted not tinted 1866
Wild West the western part of the U.S. during its 1851, 1898, 1903,
lawless frontier period 1937, 1977
Villette 1853
Benitier a vessel to contain holy water 1858, 1907, 1908, 1923
Blindless of a window; having no blinds 1859
Externat a day-school only usage
Garlandry garlands collectively 1889
Inadventurous not adventurous, unenterprising, 1867
became inadventurousness
Inexpectant not expectant, devoid of expectation 1894
Irrealizable that cannot be realized; unrealizable 1866
Recasket to enclose again in a casket 2006
Remingle to mingle again 1866
Spaineless a female spaniel only usage
(Brontë says after using this word
”if one may coin a word”)
Unbaized no given definition (dictionary.com calls only usage
baize, “a soft, usually green, woolen or cotton fabric resembling felt, used chiefly for the tops of billiard tables.”)
Unformalized not made formal? Only usage Unstabled not put into a stable only usage
While I was looking at these words I came up with the thought that maybe Charlotte Brontë just likes to make up words especially with creating forms of negation that aren’t standard. Then there is the other thought that maybe there wasn’t a standardized form for the negation of some of these words. At this point I tried coming up with forms that are more acceptable and found that there really are none. Rarely are expectant and formalized and others of the listed negated words used with a negation. But this is beside the point when it comes to language influence.
The words or ideas that I thought were most interesting are bolded above. The first of these is the word choucrout. This is the French spelling of a German loanword that had been used in English since 1633. It makes me wonder why Brontë chose to use this word when she probably knew the German version and also why she used so many obscure French words and phrases in her writings when English words were available. My guess is that her writing was influenced by her short stay in Brussels while teaching at a boarding school during the early 1840s. This also might be a reason why she created so many new words out of French. For instance, benitier is not a word in French but is an original formation from the French word for blessed, benit.
Brontë was also the first to use general as a verb. This creation is best explained by the example from her novel Shirley, “Crime and the lost archangel generalled the ranks of Pharaoh.” This use of general is not in much use today however, this might be one of the earlier attempts to ‘verb’ a noun as we are constantly doing today and it is in my opinion definitely one of the more creative.
I think it is fascinating that Brontë coined the phrase wild west. Although this doesn’t turn up much in further written examples it is a phrase we have heard in movies and from teachers and which is still used today. This is her first successful attempt at creating a new word and the only one which has remained in use through the years. It is interesting to note that her word recasket was cited as also used in 2006 which could suggest continued usage however this is the only other citation aside from her own and thus is only an interesting phenomenon that this word occurred again.
The last word which I found of interest gives some evidence that Brontë was aware of her invention of words. The exact quote from Villette is, “He spoke no more to the pupils,..but gave many an endearing word to a small spanieless (if one may coin a word).” This shows that she had intent at least in this one instance of ‘coining a word’ and allows the theory that she had intent with others of her random words as well and wasn’t just being ignorant in her spellings or uses.
Charlotte Brontë was born on April 21, 1816 in Thornton, Yorkshire, England the third of six children to an Irish Anglican clergyman, Patrick Brontë, and his wife Maria Branwell. Her father’s original surname was Brunty which was the anglicized version of the Irish Ó Proinntigh. There have been several speculations made as to why Patrick would change his name, one of these being a wish to hide his humble origins and an attempt to appear more well-to-do. This could show some genetic tendency to change words and meanings and could also demonstrate a familial preference of French, which, as I stated before, Brontë used a lot of when creating new words in her novels.
Brontë’s ancestry isn’t extremely well researched, yet we can find that her paternal line obviously comes from Ireland, where her father was born, and from Cornwall and Yorkshire, where her mother’s line is from. This limited ancestry that we have of Brontë can give us some clues as to her language background. She obviously has some Celtic and Gaelic influence through her Irish heritage. And her Yorkshire ancestry might have some influence on her writing, however according to A Biography of the English Language by C.M. Millward, “standardization of the written language at the beginning of EMnE has concealed most dialectal differences.” A few distinctions can be made in morphology and syntax which leads me to believe that the spelling variations of several of her negated words were dialectal in origin.
I’m not sure how much this paper demonstrates Brontë’s influence on the English language but it is interesting to me to see how many words she either decided to invent or which were a part of her regional dialect. The answer to this question may never be fully realized especially since she wrote during the later stages of Early Modern English which was even more standardized than the earlier stages of the language. However, I like to think that Brontë was doing back then what we love to do today which is make up new words or create new meanings for old words. In this way Brontë shares English with us in her own unique way.
Works Cited
http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/advsearchform : Bronte in first cited author
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Bronte
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Bronte
http://www.familysearch.org : Charlotte Bronte Birth 1816 àPedigree Resource File #2
Millward, C. (1996). A Biography of the English Language. Orlando: Harcourt Brace College Publishers.
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