H.L. Mencken (1880–1956). The American Language. 1921.
Page 422
| 11. The Slavic Languages |
| So far as I have been able to discover there is no literature in English upon the philological results of transplanting the Slavic languages, Polish, Czech, Serbian and Bulgarian, to America. Dr. C. H. Wachtel, editor of the Dziennik Chicagoski, the Polish daily newspaper published in Chicago, informs me that the Polish spoken in the United States has “taken over a great multitude of English words and phrases,” and says that the Rev. B. E. Goral, a priest of Milwaukee, has written several articles in Polish upon the subject and collected a vocabulary. But I have been unable to get into communication with Father Goral. I am likewise informed by the editor of the Svornost, the Bohemian daily of Chicago, that a study of the changes undergone by Czech in the United States has been published by Dr. J. Salaba Vojan, of Chicago, but my inquiries of Dr. Vojan are unanswered. Regarding Serbian and Bulgarian I have been unable to obtain any information whatever. Of late years several chairs of Slavic languages and literatures have been set up in American universities. It is to be hoped that among the students they attract there will be some who will devote themselves to the transplanted living tongues as the scholars of the Middle West have devoted themselves to Dano-Norwegian. |
III. Proverb and Platitude |
| No people, save perhaps the Spaniards, have a richer store of proverbial wisdom than the Americans, and surely none other makes more diligent and deliberate efforts to augment its riches. The American literature of “inspirational” platitude is enormous and almost unique. There are half a dozen authors, e. g., Dr. Orison Swett Marden and Dr. Frank Crane, who devote themselves almost |