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Page 3
The modern meaning is somewhat more precise. In relation to a language
such as English, it is used in a special sense to signify "a local
variety of speech differing from the standard or literary language."
When we talk of "speakers of dialect," we imply that they employ a
provincial method of speech to which the man who has been educated to
use the language of books is unaccustomed. Such a man finds that the
dialect-speaker frequently uses words or modes of expression which he
does not understand or which are at any rate strange to him; and he is
sure to notice that such words as seem to be familiar to him are, for
the most part, strangely pronounced. Such differences are especially
noticeable in the use of vowels and diphthongs, and in the mode
of intonation.
The speaker of the "standard" language is frequently tempted to
consider himself as the dialect-speaker's superior, unless he has
already acquired some elementary knowledge of the value of the science
of language or has sufficient common sense to be desirous of learning
to understand that which for the moment lies beyond him. I remember
once hearing the remark made--"What is the good of dialects? Why not
sweep them all away, and have done with them?" But the very form of
the question betrays ignorance of the facts; for it is no more
possible to do away with them than it is possible to suppress the
waves of the sea. English, like every other literary language, has
always had its dialects and will long continue to possess them in
secluded districts, though they are at the present time losing much of
that archaic character which gives them their chief value. The spread
of education may profoundly modify them, but the spoken language of
the people will ever continue to devise new variations and to initiate
developments of its own. Even the "standard" language is continually
losing old words and admitting new ones, as was noted long ago by
Horace; and our so-called "standard" pronunciation is ever
imperceptibly but surely changing, and never continues in one stay.
In the very valuable _Lectures on the Science of Language_ by
Professor F. Max Müller, the second Lecture, which deserves careful
study, is chiefly occupied by some account of the processes which he
names respectively "phonetic decay" and "dialectic regeneration";
processes to which all languages have always been and ever will be
subject.
By "phonetic decay" is meant that insidious and gradual alteration in
the sounds of spoken words which, though it cannot be prevented, at
last so corrupts a word that it becomes almost or wholly unmeaning.
Such a word as _twenty_ does not suggest its origin. Many might
perhaps guess, from their observation of such numbers as _thirty,
forty_, etc., that the suffix _-ty_ may have something to do with
_ten_, of the original of which it is in fact an extremely reduced
form; but it is less obvious that _twen-_ is a shortened form of
_twain_. And perhaps none but scholars of Teutonic languages are aware
that _twain_ was once of the masculine gender only, while _two_ was so
restricted that it could only be applied to things that were feminine
or neuter. As a somewhat hackneyed example of phonetic decay, we may
take the case of the Latin _mea domina_, i.e. my mistress, which
became in French _ma dame_, and in English _madam_; and the last of
these has been further shortened to _mam_, and even to _'m_, as in the
phrase "Yes, 'm." This shows how nine letters may be reduced to one.
Similarly, our monosyllable _alms_ is all that is left of the Greek
_ele{-e}mosyn{-e}_. Ten letters have here been reduced to four.
This irresistible tendency to indistinctness and loss is not,
however, wholly bad; for it has at the same time largely contributed,
especially in English, to such a simplification of grammatical
inflexions as certainly has the practical convenience of giving us
less to learn. But in addition to this decay in the forms of words, we
have also to reckon with a depreciation or weakening of the ideas they
express. Many words become so hackneyed as to be no longer impressive.
As late as in 1820, Keats could say, in stanza 6 of his poem of
_Isabella_, that "His heart beat awfully against his side"; but at
the present day the word _awfully_ is suggestive of schoolboys' slang.
It is here that we may well have the benefit of the principle of
"dialectic regeneration." We shall often do well to borrow from our
dialects many terms that are still fresh and racy, and instinct with a
full significance. Tennyson was well aware of this, and not only wrote
several poems wholly in the Lincolnshire dialect, but introduced
dialect words elsewhere. Thus in _The Voyage of Maeldune_, he has
the striking line: "Our voices were thinner and fainter than any
flittermouse-shriek." In at least sixteen dialects a _flittermouse_
means "a bat."
I have mentioned Tennyson in this connexion because he was a careful
student of English, not only in its dialectal but also in its older
forms. But, as a matter of fact, nearly all our chief writers have
recognised the value of dialectal words. Tennyson was not the first
to use the above word. Near the end of the Second Act of his _Sad
Shepherd_, Ben Jonson speaks of:
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