A 'living, cloven, apostolic tongue' and 'philanthropic philology' - Exploring the Possibility of Working-Class Writings on Language Theory in the 1840s

This article looks at two essays by John Goodwyn Barmby published in the New Moral World and Howitt’s Journal to explore the possibility of a working-class theory of language in England in the 1840s. Positioning Barmby’s writings in relation to explicit connections between politics, language theory and culture by middle-class writers in the 1830s that prepared the way for the emergence of the New Philology in England in the mid-nineteenth century, I also examine whether these two pieces fit within and extend a tradition of ‘alternative’ politically radical language theory produced at the turn of the century. By adopting and adapting research into the earlier period, I explore how Barmby’s texts attempt to invoke and accentuate discourses that became crucial to the development of new paradigms for the study of language in England. My analysis shows evidence to support the view that those discourses were neither radical nor conservative, and that their use in writings on language and politics was complex. I conclude that Barmby’s essays add to our knowledge of the history of language theory in England in the nineteenth century. More specifically, his texts are best described as instances of what could be called working-class labour on language theory in the 1840s, and as such they help our identification and analysis of the work being done by others at that time to appropriate and shape discourses in order to speak about language in terms of the emergent paradigm of the New Philology. Keywords: Barmby; philology; language; working-class; 1840s.