Editing Otto Jespersen (section)

===Evolution and progress of languages===
Jespersen wrote "That language ranks highest which goes farthest in the art of accomplishing much with little means, or, in other words, which is able to express the greatest amount of meaning with the simplest mechanism."<ref>{{Cite book | last=Jespersen | first=Otto | year=1894 | title=Progress in Language: With special reference to English | location=London | publisher=Sonnenschein | oclc=607098829 | url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924026448203 | via=Internet Archive | page=13}} {{Cite book | last=Jespersen | first=Otto | year=1922 | title=Language: Its Nature, Development and Origin | location=London | publisher=George Allen & Unwin | page=324}}</ref> Jespersen considered the efficiency of a language's phonology, lexicon and grammar,{{Sfnp|McElvenny|2017|p=419}} his view of grammar in reaction to [[August Wilhelm Schlegel]]'s contrasting estimates of "[[Synthetic language|synthetic]]" and "[[Analytic language|analytic]]" inflectional languages.{{Sfnp|McElvenny|2017|pp=419–420}} Schlegel, his brother [[Friedrich Schlegel]], and [[Wilhelm von Humboldt]] prized synthetic languages, and the ranking of languages that resulted became the generally received view.{{Sfnp|McElvenny|2017|p=420}} [[August Schleicher]] was a conspicuous proponent of the idea that several (such as Latin) among the older languages had attained a "synthetic" optimum, and languages that derived from these tended to degrade via the "analytic" towards an "[[Isolating language|isolating]]" extreme, the degree of degradation of a language increasing with "the richness and eventfulness of its speakers' history".{{Sfnp|McElvenny|2017|p=421}} 

Jespersen proposed the reverse, criticizing the needless complexities of "synthetic" grammar, and ascribing Schleicher's evaluations to "a grammar-school admiration, a Renaissance love of [Latin and Ancient Greek] and their literatures".<ref>''Progress in Language'', pp. 9–10; quoted in {{Sfnlink|McElvenny|2017|p=421}}.</ref>

Whereas Schleicher conceived language as a biological phenomenon, and thus subject to processes such as maturation, ageing and death, linguists of the mid 19th century such as [[Georg Curtius]], [[Johan Nikolai Madvig]] and [[William Dwight Whitney]] emphasized language as a human-developed tool for communication. By the end of the century this became the received conception of language.{{Sfnp|McElvenny|2017|p=422}} 

Jespersen thought of the uses of language as needing a balance between two factors: the ''ease'' of the speaker's expression of ideas, and the ''distinctness'' of that expression (and thus the ease of comprehension for the listener).<ref>''Efficiency in Linguistic Change'', pp. 391–392; quoted in {{Sfnlink|McElvenny|2017|p=422}}.</ref> The proximate sources of the pair were [[Georg von der Gabelentz]]'s ''Bequemlichkeitstrieb'' ('drive to comfort') and ''Deutlichkeitstrieb'' ('drive to distinctness', although ''Deutlichkeit'' had a broader meaning than did Jespersen's early formulations of ''distinctness'').{{Sfnp|McElvenny|2017|p=423}} Jespersen later recognized that distinctness should include playfulness, vividness and other factors, but they did not dislodge the ability to communicate from its foremost position.{{Sfnp|McElvenny|2017|p=424}}

Unlike Gabelentz, Jespersen was interested in extending the concepts of analyticity and efficiency to international auxiliary languages.{{Sfnp|McElvenny|2017|p=425}} Within negotiations among the [[Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language]] aimed at deciding which constructed language should receive the international backing of scholars, the greatest supporter of Jespersen's principles was the chemist [[Wilhelm Ostwald]], who had his own theory of ''Energetik'' ('energetics'), and for whom "Language was .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. a domain of culture calling out to be optimized through deliberate intervention".{{Sfnp|McElvenny|2017|p=427}} Thus for Jespersen, progress towards communicative efficiency is anyway inevitable,<ref>{{Cite book | first=Otto | last=Jespersen | date=1933 | chapter=Energetik der Sprache | title=Linguistica: Selected Papers in English, French and German | location=Copenhagen | publisher=Levin & Munskgaard | orig-date=1914 | pages=98–108 | oclc=459619574 | url=https://archive.org/details/dli.ministry.16424/page/n5/mode/2up | via=Internet Archive | language=de}}</ref> but can be assisted by language engineering.{{Sfnp|McElvenny|2017|p=428}}

From his doctoral dissertation of 1891 onwards, Jespersen maintained that over time language did not merely change but progressed. Originally inspired by [[Herbert Spencer|Spencer]]'s ideas on the progress of language, this was also a reaction against [[August Schleicher]]'s theory that, after increasing in complexity, languages become senescent and decay.{{sfnp|Hjelmslev|1943|p=127}} In his books ''Language: Its nature, development and origin'' (1922) and ''Efficiency in linguistic change'' (1941) and elsewhere, Jespersen attempted to show that an evolutionary perspective, in which the fittest expression (that whose efficiency is maximized with minimum effort) survived, explained language change over time.{{sfnp|Hjelmslev|1943|p=127}}

Hjelmslev criticizes the ambiguity of "efficiency" and "effort"; and adds that even if these are understood only loosely, there have been counter-examples.{{Efn|For these, Hjelmslev particularly credits [[Björn Collinder]]'s ''Introduktion i Språkvetenskapen'' ("Introduction to linguistics"; Stockholm 1941).}} He concludes that, as propounded by Jespersen, the thesis is far from convincing, but is put forward vividly and has aroused considerable interest.{{sfnp|Hjelmslev|1943|p=127}}

Jespersen's conception of evolution soon came to differ from Spencer's. Whereas Spencer believed that increased heterogeneity – synonymy, and the generation of new word classes, dialects and even languages – indicated progress, he found progress in simplicity and uniformity{{Sfnp|McElvenny|2017|p=429}} and:

<blockquote>Jespersen praised the "{{Thinspace}}'noiseless' machinery" of English,{{Efn|1={{Cite book | first=Otto | last=Jespersen | title=A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles, Part VI: Morphology | location=Copenhagen | publisher=Ejnar Munksgaard | date=1942 | oclc=220412299 | page=85 | url=https://archive.org/details/modernenglishgra0000otto_u2o2/page/84/mode/2up | via=Internet Archive}} (McElvenny cites the 1954 edition; its pagination is the same.) Jespersen writes this in the context of "the formal identity of a great many words belonging to different word-classes" (largely thanks to [[Conversion (word formation)|conversion]]).}} the modern European language furthest down the analytic path, and the language most despised by Schleicher for precisely this analytic degeneracy.{{Sfnp|McElvenny|2017|p=429}}</blockquote>

In a review of ''Efficiency in Linguistic Change'', [[Bernard Bloch (linguist)|Bernard Bloch]] was particular clear in saying that while linguists, like anyone else, were entitled to their private opinions on the relative merits of languages, judging the utility or attractiveness of a language is not part of their job.{{Sfnp|McElvenny|2017|p=430}} But although Bloch was an American structuralist, following [[Leonard Bloomfield]], his reaction was much more extreme than that of Bloomfield, who thought that tackling questions such as relative efficiency were better postponed. 

A very different kind of opposition to Jespersen's conception came from [[Charles Bally]], whose [[stylistics]] concerns led him to concentrate on the affective dimension of language, for which processes such as polysemy and [[Clipping (morphology)|clipping]] are important, and thus to reject efficiency as an idea.{{Sfnp|McElvenny|2017|pp=433–434}} Bally's objections extended beyond this: for example, he claimed that the change from "synthetic" to "analytic" was at times reversed.{{Sfnp|McElvenny|2017|p=438}}

As for the beginnings of language:

<blockquote>[[Wilhelm von Humboldt|Humboldt]] held the view .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. that the origin of language lies in the natural urge to produce art.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. [The idea, which] originated most probably with [[Giambattista Vico|Vico]] .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. lived on till the beginning of the 20th century. Jespersen .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. emphatically denies, against all evidence, the romanticist background of this theory, [yet] still defends the thesis that language originated in song, in love play and otherwise.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Nowadays [this view] is entirely forgotten.{{Efn|1=Seuren points to Jespersen's ''Progress in Language: With Special Reference to English'' (1894); and to his ''Language: Its Nature, Development and Origin'' (1922), pp.&nbsp;431–437.}}<ref>{{Cite book | first=Pieter A. M. | last=Seuren | author-link=Pieter Seuren | title=Western Linguistics: An Historical Introduction | location=Malden, Massachusetts | publisher=Blackwell | page=77 | isbn=978-0-631-20891-4}}</ref></blockquote>

Richard C. Smith considers ''Language: Its nature, development and origin'' to be Jespersen's "masterpiece".<ref name="warwick"/>

Jespersen advanced the study of the [[Great Vowel Shift]], and was the first to present it in diagram form; he also coined its name.{{Efn|1=More precisely, Jespersen writes "the great vowel-shift": with a hyphen, and not capitalized. {{Cite book | first=Otto | last=Jespersen | title=A Modern English grammar on historical principles. Part I: Sounds and spellings | location=London | publisher=George Allen & Unwin | url= | via= | year=1961 | orig-date=1909 | pages=231–47}}}}<ref>{{Cite journal | title=The rise and fall of the Great Vowel Shift? The changing ideological intersections of philology, historical linguistics, and literary history | first=Matthew | last=Giancarlo | journal=Representations | volume=76 | number=1 | date=Fall 2001 | jstor=10.1525/rep.2001.76.1.27 | page=38}}</ref>