he borrowing of
words? It is generally assumed that the nature and extent of borrowing
depend entirely on the historical facts of culture relation; that if
German, for instance, has borrowed less copiously than English from
Latin and French it is only because Germany has had less intimate
relations than England with the culture spheres of classical Rome and
France. This is true to a considerable extent, but it is not the whole
truth. We must not exaggerate the physical importance of the Norman
invasion nor underrate the significance of the fact that Germany's
central geographical position made it peculiarly sensitive to French
influences all through the Middle Ages, to humanistic influences in the
latter fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, and again to the
powerful French influences of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
It seems very probable that the psychological attitude of the borrowing
language itself towards linguistic material has much to do with its
receptivity to foreign words. English has long been striving for the
completely unified, unanalyzed word, regardless of whether it is
monosyllabic or polysyllabic. Such words as _credible_, _certitude_,
_intangible_ are entirely welcome in English because each represents a
unitary, well-nuanced idea and because their formal analysis
(_cred-ible_, _cert-itude_, _in-tang-ible_) is not a necessary act of
the unconscious mind (_cred-_, _cert-_, and _tang-_ have no real
existence in English comparable to that of _good-_ in _goodness_). A
word like _intangible_, once it is acclimated, is nearly as simple a
psychological entity as any radical monosyllable (say _vague_, _thin_,
_grasp_). In German, however, polysyllabic words strive to analyze
themselves into significant elements. Hence vast numbers of French and
Latin words, borrowed at the height of certain cultural influences,
could not maintain themselves in the language. Latin-German words like
_kredibel_ "credible" and French-German words like _reussieren_ "to
succeed" offered nothing that the unconscious mind could assimilate to
its customary method of feeling and handling words. It is as though this
unconscious mind said: "I am perfectly willing to accept _kredibel_ if
you will just tell me what you mean by _kred-_." Hence German has
generally found it easier to create new words out of its own resources,
as the necessity for them arose.

The psychological contrast between English and German as regards the